


A Hard Habit to Break

by DomesticatedTendencies



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A teensy bit of bondage, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Captain America versus Iron Man, Civil War Team Captain America, Complete, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Fluffy Smut, Gen, Handcuffs, Happy Ending, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, Love, Nomad, On the Run, Original Character Death(s), POV Steve Rogers, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Protective Steve Rogers, Relationship(s), Shirtless Cap, Slow Build, Sorry Not Sorry, Steamy kiss, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Steve Rogers-centric, Tearjerker, The Porn is in Chapter 15, The World Needs Heroes, The feels, There's A Tag For That, Tony Stark looks bigger on TV, Touch-Starved, Unrequited, anti serum, cold shower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 32,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DomesticatedTendencies/pseuds/DomesticatedTendencies
Summary: How did I get here? How could I have let this happen? I was a soldier; a hero; an Avenger. I represented truth and justice. I represented hope! So how the hell did I get here? How did I fall so far? When did I go from being an icon to a fugitive?...The world needs heroes - Captain Steve Rogers is certain of it. But after everything he's been through, he's no longer sure what that means. Tony Stark has put a bounty on his head and has developed a technology capable of undoing the Super Soldier Serum. Badly injured and on the run, Captain seeks refuge with a combat nurse. But as things continue to spiral out of his control, he finds himself at a crossroads; should he continue to fight the good fight in a world that no longer appreciates him or embark down a new path?





	1. Prologue

How did I get here? How could I have let this happen? I was a soldier; a hero; an Avenger. I represented truth and justice. I represented hope! So how the hell did I get here? How did I fall so far? When did I go from being an icon to a fugitive?

All I ever wanted was to do the right thing. Sure, sometimes it came at a price. Cities crumbled. Building fell. People died. I still hear their screams in my sleep. I wish like hell that I could go back and save them all, but I can't. I did what I had to do.

I never asked for this. Not for me. Not for my friends. I think of Buck frozen and stored like a friend popsicle forgotten in a remote region of Wakanda and i shiver despite the heat. God, I didn't ask for any of this.

I hear a child's scream and instinctually I look up, ready to spring in to action. The girl screams again clapping as she lands at the bottom of the slide. Her mother claps for her too, congratulating her on being so brave.

Watching the two of them, for a moment I almost feel sick. The park is empty aside from us, and the mother follows the girl from the slide to the swings; close enough to react and yet far enough away to give the illusion of independence. The girl stumbles and I watch her mother wince. I think it must be hard to be a parent; to want so badly to protect your child from injury and at same time giving them enough room to make mistakes.

Spotting me where I sit beneath the only shade granting tree in the park, the little girl waves. I wave back. Her mother turns in my direction. She has a hand on her hip and the other over her eyes as she squints in the sun. She looks tired.

Again I'll ask, how the hell did I get here? How did we get here?

I'm a fugitive. My picture, which was once used as a symbol for patriotism, now hangs in every post office, police station, and DMV across the United States with the word: WANTED written across the top. Not just the U.S. either, but abroad. I'm considered an international threat. There's reward of one millions dollars, no doubt coming from Tony Stark himself, for information leading to my capture. This mother and her child playing together, they're my hostages. They just don't know it yet.

Again the urge to vomit comes over me and for a second I think I might bring up the bologna and cheese sandwich I had for lunch.

The girl screams again and this time I can hear the distinction between joy and pain. I look up to find her mother kneeling over her, offering her comfort for a scraped knee. I climb to my feet, dust my hands on my jeans, and start to walk over.

"Is she alright?" I ask.

It's a hard habit to break, being the hero.


	2. Chapter 2

She was up before the sun every morning, not because she particularly liked to be but because it was necessary. She took a quick shower to wake herself up, poured a cup of coffee so she could function, and then headed out to the back porch with a book. It was nothing heavy; at five o'clock in the morning a cheap romance novel was about all her brain could process, but it felt good to do this simple exercise. Sometimes she brought out her sewing, something easy to be done by hand, or else her crochet basket, or she might simply sit in her rocking chair and enjoy the stillness of dawn. But regardless of what she did with the time, having that uninterrupted hour to herself was priceless.

The birds were in full swing this morning, chirping and trilling their favorite songs. They were used to their audience and thus paid her no mind when she took up her seat in the rocker. Her bare feet tucked up underneath her, the birds wished her a chipper good morning. She gave a contented sigh.

It was peaceful out here. No neighbors to both her. No cars constantly on the road. She liked living in the country house, even if the water pipes did rattle and she had growing concerns over the well going dry. She could understand why her husband had wanted to make the move here. Everywhere else just seemed too... people-y by comparison.

Grace was tired of people. She was tired of their faces and the looks they gave her. She was tired of their false words of understanding. They didn't understand her. There was no way they could understand her. And if it wasn't for the fact that there were bills to pay and a mortgage on the country house, most days she wouldn't even bother going in to town to work.

She hated her job, which was sad considering what it had once meant to her. She was a nurse. A trauma nurse to be exact. She specialized in all things blood and gore. Her iron resolve and steady hands had served her well for the six years and two tours she had given to the United States Army as a combat nurse, and she had loved it. She had been proud of the work she had done over there; of the men and women she had helped. But now she changed bedpans at the local VA trying to make ends meet. Now she faced the aftermath of war every day. It had turned her iron resolve to mush. She had been trained to react in emergent situations, but they never prepared her for life after the emergencies. They didn't tell her about amputees living in agony from phantom pains or the paraplegics with constant bladder infections from their folly catheters. Maybe she had known but refused to believe. Maybe she had been naive. Either way in war she had touched these soldiers, had promised them comfort, but now she knew that they would never know comfort again. They didn't tell her how helpless that would make her feel.

She needed her quiet hour in the morning in order to be able to go back.

Suddenly the birds stopped singing and there was a flurry of wings. Something has spooked them. A predatory animal maybe? Grace kept a loaded .22 rifle above the kitchen door just in case. Feral cats were a constant issue, and this time of year coyotes were common. They had even seen the occasional bear though she doubted that was the problem now. She leaned forward in her chair, listening to the stillness.

Hearing what the birds had heard, she got to her feet and ducked back inside but she didn't go for the .22. Instead she grabbed the handgun kept on the top shelf in the cabinet by the door. She slid the loaded clip in and put one in the chamber. Whatever or whomever was coming up the driveway now would require a larger caliber than a .22.

There was an old pair of work boots sitting by the back door that belonged to her husband. She didn't know why she still kept them there; it wasn't like he was coming back for them any time soon, but something about having them there made her feel more secure. Like somehow the illusion of having a man around made her safer. At the last second she jammed her bare feet in to them. They were far too big and clunky on her feet but it was better than nothing as she headed back outside.

It was still dark out, the sky only just starting to lighten with the coming day. On the far side of the yard, about 20 yards from the porch, the floodlight over the old barn was activated by her movement. A black SUV was pulling up at a snails pace and her stomach plummeted. It had been her experience that nondescript black SUVs never brought good news.

The gun was lax at her side, her finger resting lightly on the trigger guard as the vehicle rolled to a stop. She could hear her every breath, slow and steady as the driver side door flew open.

"Either shoot me or put the damn gun away."

She gasped. There was a seconds hesitation before she broke it to an awkward run, hindered by the boots. Hugging him tight around the neck and shoulders, she had a million questions running through her head.

"What are you doing here?" She managed hoarsely.

After briefly returning her embrace, Sam Wilson held her back at arms length. The expression on his face was serious, nothing like the easy going guy she had known. They hadn't seen each other in years but she could tell something was wrong.

"I'm sorry to drop in on you like this but we need your help."

"We?"

"Hi!" A head popped out of the passenger side window. "It's nice to meet you. You have a great place here. Real Little House on The Prairie -ish. I'm Scott."

Grace's eyes went wide as Sam shook his head and muttered something that sounded like "for the love of God" under his breath.

Sam indicated with his head towards the back of the car and Grace followed. Opening the lift gate, Grace gasped again.

There was a third man crouched over the lifeless body of a fourth. Blood soaked both their clothes, its familiar metallic tang scenting the air. Memories of triage and surly doctors shouting orders sprang to her mind. Grace blinked back the flood memories. He looked precisely three steps from death. She had seen worse, but not just much.

"Is that...?"

"Yes."

"What happened to him?"

"It doesn't matter," Sam kept his voice low, controlled as Grace stared numbly at the bloody mess in the back of the truck. "We just need to know if you're willing to help."

"He needs a hospital."

"That's not an option."

Grace looked from Sam to the dour man sitting in the vehicle who had spoken. His face showed little emotion as he glared at her.

"Grace, Clint Barton. Clint, Grace Holland."

Clint gave a terse nod.

"I hate to put this on you, you know that, but you were the only person I could think of. Please, Grace. He's a friend."

She should have thought twice about it, or at the very least should have asked more questions, but she didn't. She was a combat nurse with years of experience hardwired to react. Besides, she trusted Sam implicitly.

"Get him inside." She gave the order with the authoritative tone accustomed to a woman who knew she was in charge.

Clint Barton climbed carefully over the injured man and together, he and Sam hauled their fallen comrade out of the truck. Each of them took an arm over their shoulders, his body hanging limp between them as they held him around the waist. His head lolled and a pained groan come from him. If not for all the blood he might have looked like a drunkard unable to stand on his own.

His feet dragged in the dirt leaving twin snail trails as they dragged/carried him toward the house. The third man, Scott, hurried ahead to open the door for them while Grace rushed inside and made quick work of clearing the farm table in the kitchen. It would have to do.

"Lay him there," she ordered, adding 'gently' only after they dropped him like a side of beef.

"Christ, he's heavy," Barton complained.

Grace paid him no attention as she dried her washed hands on a clean dish towel. Her moves were efficient, and she grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer by the sink.

"What do you need, Grace?" Sam asked, his voice calm despite the urgency.

"There's a black bag in the closet by the stairs," She instructed. "Top shelf."

With an affirmative nod, he ducked out of the room while Grace looked to Barton.

"Help me with his clothes," It wasn't a request.

Barton obliged and Grace quickly cut away the blood soaked shirt revealing the wreckage beneath. He was a mess and she started taking inventory. She counted three bullet holes, two appearing to have been fired at close range in the upper right quadrant. His lower torso suffered clear blunt force trauma, a clear indicator of hand to hand combat. A long gash cutting through his side in an arc from his third rib to near his sternum, and his lower back was peppered by what appeared to be...

"Is that buckshot?" Her eyes flicked up to the men hovering in her kitchen.

Scott shrugged. "Not exactly. I mean it was Iron Man. He has these little taser BB things. You know, just like pew pew and then he's," He nodded towards the patient, "On the ground having a fit. Man, was he pissed after that. Of course that was before..."

"Lang!" Sam snapped. Coming back in to the room, he dropped Grace's bag on a kitchen chair and shot Scott a warning look.

Grace's eyes were wide again, and she blinked in a mix of numb disbelief. "Wow. So that's really a thing. You all just go around calling each other by your superhero names?"

"He likes to call me Tic Tac," Scott said, as though helpfully.

With his bulging arms folded over his chest, Sam rolled his eyes.

"I kicked his ass once," Scott added.

"No you didn't!"

"Yeah, I kinda did."

"See, this is how you piss people off," Sam jabbed a finger at him.

"Alright, enough," Grace interjected sharply, taking back control of the room. "Seeing as how Captain America is currently bleeding out on my kitchen table, I'm going to have to ask you guys put a pin in it. Now I thought he was supposed to be self healing."

"No. You're thinking of the wolverine. That guys a beast," Scott quipped. He couldn't seem to help himself. It was like some form of witty Tourette's.

"Shut up, Lang," Sam shot, then to Grace, "He heals faster, but he still needs help, especially when it's bad."

"Plus there's whatever Stark hit him with," Clint added darkly.

"Meaning what?" Grace asked.

"Stark developed some sort of anti-serum. Something to take him down a notch."

"Like kryptonite for the Cap."

"Lang!" Sam snapped.

"Sorry."

"It counteracts the super soldier serum. Slows him down; weakens him," Sam explained. "The effects are temporary."

"And how do we know that?" Grace asked.

Barton was the one to answer that, "Because he's not dead."

As though to prove it, the man on the table let out what could only be described as a yowl, deep and wrought with pain. Wriggling on the table, it appeared like he was trying to get up, to keep fighting. Apparently no one had told him the battle over and he had lost.

"It's okay, Cap," Sam told his friend from where he stood at his feet.

The good Captain didn't seem to hear him. His restless blue eyes roving, they landed on Grace and he grabbed her roughly by the arm. She gasped; damn was he strong, and the three men left standing moved quickly to intervene but Grace reacted by instinct, saving them the trouble.

"It's okay, Soldier," She soothed, leaning to his ear.

"Peg," The Captain choked roughly.

She spoke softly like a lover, her gentle breath stirring the air by his ear. "It's alright. You did good, Soldier. You did good. Just rest now. I'm going to take care of you. Just rest. Rest."

As though he were obeying an order, he relaxed. His head fell back with a solid thunk on the wood table. His grip left angry red welts where his fingers had dug in and his arm fell limp off the table. Grace lifted his hand gently and tucked it neatly beneath his hip. Then she set to work and Sam looked to the other two men as though to say, "This is why we came here."


	3. Chapter 3

Grace grimaced and the woman looking back at her did the same. She was a mess. There was dried blood smeared across her forehead, her fault for carelessly swiping at her brow. Her green eyes were listless; ringed with blueish circles and her face was pale. She turned on the sink and ran some cool water to splash on her face.

Four hours. That's how long it had taken. Four hours of working blind; no equipment, no sterilized field, no surgical team to assist. Just her in her kitchen with the unconscious Captain splayed out on the breakfast table and the three stooges standing watch. By hour two she had been certain she would have strangled Scott Lang herself if she hadn't also been sure that she would have had to be the one to revive him. How many Grey's Anatomy jokes could one man have? In the end though she had successfully pulled two 9 millimeter slugs from the Captain's chest, eight of Starks magic electric BB's from his back (four of which Lang had made zapping sound effects for during the extraction of), and had performed a series of 60 stitches for the deep laceration across his side. Then after she had sufficiently cleaned and dressed the many wounds, the men carried the patient (under Grace's strict order to be careful) up the stairs to her bed.

Out in the yard she could hear voices, chief among them the chipper little cartoon voice of her daughter, Eve. She was holding court no doubt, shouting orders of, "higher, higher". When the three year old had stumbled down the stairs promptly at 6:30 to find her mother elbow deep in blood, it has been Barton who had intercepted her before she could see too much. He had scooped her up under his arm like a sack of potatoes making demands to know where she kept the good toys. He had also fed her milk and cookies for breakfast and dressed her, if pajama bottoms and a tu-tu could be counted as such. Bless him though, the cranky looking super spy had a way with kids and Eve now had a new best friend.

She took a shuttering breath. With her back to the slumbering man, she finished washing up and changed her clothes.

Despite his split lip and the swelling to the right side of his face, her patient looked almost peaceful in sleep. She was happy to see that his breaths were coming in slow steady rhythm. She suspected him to have a broken rib or two but he didn't appear to be having much discomfort, or else he was immune to the pain. In sleep he looked younger than she would have expected, his cheeks flushed with sleep and reminding her of a child's. As she stood over the bed she had the urge to push the hair back from his brow.

"How's he doing?" Sam asked from the open doorway.

Grace pulled back. Her hand had been reaching and now she held it clasped before her as though she had been bit or else caught doing something she shouldn't.

"He hasn't woken up," She told him, her mouth twisted in concern.

"Yeah, he does that," Sam said with a frown, thinking of the days he'd spent sitting beside his friends hospital bed. "It's like his bodies way of pooling energy to recover."

Grace nodded absently as she watched the rise and fall of the bandaged chest. The rhythm was hypnotic.

Sam stepped in to the small bedroom so that he stood opposite of her with the Captain in the bed between them. He was looking down on his friend, silently willing him to wake up and give the orders. When he didn't, he sighed.

"We need to leave."

"He's not fit to travel," She told him, her thumb pressed to her bottom lip.

Sam's rich brown eyes dropped.

"Wait, you want to leave him here?" Her voice went up on octave as she looked at him. "You can't -."

"We have to. With the three of us here there's a better chance of him being found and we need to get back to regroup," He explained.

"I can't be apart of this. It's bad enough I just performed thoracic surgery on this guy in my kitchen, which by the way I expect someone to clean, but to actually keep him here? Sam, no. I have my daughter to think about."

"Eve will be fine."

"Not if I get caught aiding and abetting a criminal, she won't."

"He's not a criminal, Grace."

"To half the world he is! To Iron Man he is."

"You were a soldier once; a patriot. You believed in the same principles he does."

"And look where that's gotten me," She shot. "I'm a single mother who spends her days wiping the asses of so called patriots just trying to get by. I can't do this Sam. I can't keep him here. Please, don't ask me."

Sam could see the panic in her eyes. Her lip trembled with it. He had to look away because he knew he would hate himself for what he had to say next.

"I wouldn't ask if I had another option. Please Grace, I need you to do this. If you won't do it for me or for the Cap I understand, but do it for Riley. I know he would have believed in him. He would have wanted to help."

He closed his eyes when he heard the catch in her throat. When he opened them again she was glaring at him with something that matched open contempt.

"How dare you," She hissed. "Just who the hell do you think you are? You show up here after all these years, asking my help, demanding the impossible, and as soon as I say no you have the nerve to throw Riley in my face?"

"You know I'm right."

"Fuck you," she spat hatefully.

"Grace, please."

"No, Sam, no! Riley isn't here now, is he? And if he was, he would want me to do what was right for me and Eve."

"Did it occur to you that helping Cap could be what's right for the two of you? All he wants is to have the freedom to make the world a better place. To keep people like you safe. To make it so soldiers like Riley -."

"Stop!" She sobbed. She was doubled over, hugging herself as the tears came. "Please."

Sam rushed around the foot of the bed and wrapped his arms around her in an attempt to keep the fragile pieces together. He knew she was tough - tougher than most - and it made seeing her vulnerable even harder.

After a minute her shaking stopped and the tears subsided. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater.

"So that's it, then?" She sniffed. "That's the side we're on?"

Sam nodded gravely, looking to their sleeping commander in chief.

"It's the side Cap's on."


	4. Chapter 4

Water drip-drip-dropped from the old leaky faucet. Her chief complaint over the hall bathroom had always been its lack of a shower. Her husband had said it would be easy to convert the outdated bathroom with its clawfoot tub in to a proper four piece, but he had never gotten to it. Now her problem was less with the lack of shower and more with the lack of quiet. The stream was ceaseless and Grace checked once again that she had fully shut off the tap. She had. Sitting back in the the tub with a huff she made eye contact with a bug-eyed warted frog watching her from the corner.

"What are you looking at?" She glowered before rolling her eyes at herself. She was talking to bath toys now. Wonderful.

She was exhausted. Her shift at the VA had felt especially long today and the work more grueling than usual. It had taken her two hours to get a PIC line into a needle shy Vietnam vet and she had spent the better part of her afternoon battling it out on the phone with a service provider over a soldier who had served in Desert Storm. Sargent O'Malley had been exceptionally cantankerous and had flung his tapioca pudding across the room at a nurses assistant. That had resulted in him being given a dose of Ativan and after that he had insisted he could walk despite having spent the better half of fifty years confined to his wheel chair. It had taken forty five minutes to settle him down after that and even then Grace hadn't felt safe leaving him without a fall monitor. She made a note in his chart threatening bodily harm should anyone else try to sedate the war hero again. Then apparently Eve had refused to nap at daycare so she had come home extra cranky. This resulted in a battle of the wills over peas at dinner and a subsequent mother/daughter meltdown that ended with ice cream for all and not a single pea being eaten between them. And then there was her sleepy house guest. 

Four days and he had yet to wake up. Every morning she left food and water on the dresser beside the bed with a note briefly detailing the date and his situation. Every night she came home to find everything exactly how she left it. If it wasn't for the steady rise and fall of his chest she might think he were dead - that and the fever he had suddenly spiked.

There had been no word from Sam.

So, yeah, it had been a rough day. A rough week. Hell, it had been a rough few years and as she sat in the lukewarm bath with the steady drip-drip-drop of the faucet destroying any hope of a moments peace, it all started to wash over her again.

She refused to wallow a minute longer. Climbing out of the tub, the water sloshed and she dripped on the bath mat. She didn't even look in the mirror as she towel dried and dressed in clean cotton pajamas. Her chestnut hair knotted on top of her head, she flung her towel over the rod and flicked off the light.

First she checked on Eve asleep in her bed. Her favorite dolly was cuddled to her chest and her wispy curls haloed her serene face. A nightlight projected stars across the ceiling, casting her in a pale blue glow. She still sucked her thumb and Grace smiled down on her. She kissed her warm cheek and promised that tomorrow she would be a better mother. She would have more patience and stress less over green vegetables. She would try harder.

From there she padded barefoot across the hall. She had left a lamp on and the light accentuated the contours of the sleeping Captains body. He was still shirtless, his torso wrapped in clean sterile bandages and the blankets were pushed down to his waist. The serum in his system truly was remarkable because though unconscious and despite the considerable damage to his body, he was showing visible signs of healing. His face alone was already losing the traces of the fight and the gash that she had stitched just days before was knitting nicely. Whatever damage Stark hoped to accomplish with his anti-serum, the Captains body seemed to have already overcome it. She thought anyway. There was still the fever.

She ran the temporal thermometer across his temple and behind his ear. Still high. She frowned.

"Alright Captain," She started checking his dressings. "I know you're probably enjoying your little nap here but it would be really great if you could wake up for me. I've got some questions for you, namely if I should give you a round of antibiotics. I'm not sure if that's allowed or whatever. I mean, what if you're allergic to penicillin? I also wouldn't mind being able to move back in to my room. You understand don't you, I really miss my shower."

She dropped heavily in to the high backed chair in the corner. Usually it was a catch all for laundry but tonight it would be her bed.

"Anytime Soldier. I'm waiting on you."

*********

6:29am and the sound of little bare feet could be heard thundering across the hall. Grace, who had twisted herself sideways in the chair so that her legs hung over one arm and her neck lay over the other in an impossibly uncomfortable position, opened her eyes just in time to see Eve enter the room in all her glory and open her mouth ready to shout, good morning. Her mother held a finger to her lips, darting a look to the forever sleeping Captain.

"Shhh," She whispered, heaving herself out of the chair. Her whole body protested the movement. "Come on Little Bean, lets let the Captain sleep."

"He takes a lot of naps," Eve observed, taking her mother by hand.

"That he does. Maybe you should take some pointers from him."

"What?" The toddler asked inquisitively.

"Never mind. What sounds good for breakfast?"

The sound of their voices faded as they headed down the hall. Somewhere a television turned on and there was a theme song to some children's morning show. The Captain could hear all this and made note. Then he opened his eyes.

The room was simple; cozy. Besides the bed he occupied there was a dresser and a chair. There wasn't room for much more, but everything had that comfortable feel of home. There was an open door adjacent to the bed and when he sat up he could see inside a small bathroom.

A glass of water sat beside the bed and he drank it greedily while studying the framed photograph of a little girl. He thought he must be at the Barton's. It made sense. This house, this room, the picture of this child. The woman's voice that he had heard could have very well belonged to Laura Barton. Somehow this thought comforted him. He liked the Barton's and could admit, at least to himself, that he envied a little the simple life that Clint had built for himself and kept secreted away from the chaos of their work.

Someone had dressed him in gym shorts, the mesh kind with a draw string. He felt like a thief riffling through the dresser drawers looking for something more appropriate but all he found were women's clothes. The clean lavender scent of them made the back of his tongue prick with something even he couldn't describe.

He wished he knew where his clothes were. He wished he could remember who had taken them off. He hoped it hadn't been Mrs. Barton. Somehow that thought felt shameful and wrong.

He kept close to the wall as he left the bedroom. He felt off, not quite himself, and he couldn't remember exactly how to get to the kitchen. The Barton's were always in their kitchen, it was the central hub of their home. There he could find food and someone would be able to help him with some clothes. The smell of bacon cooking was making his mouth water.

He made it to the bottom of the stairs and stopped to lean on the banister for a moment. How long had he been out of it this time? Weeks? Months? His brain felt full of cobwebs and he couldn't quite find his bearings. 

He found the television in the living room with its children's show but no one was watching it. From the other room he could hear voices. Namely one voice - the woman's. He followed the sound of her voice and the smell of food, but it wasn't until he reached the entry of the kitchen that he realized this wasn't the Barton's house. In fact he didn't know whose house this was or who the woman standing at the stove with her back to him was. The girl from the photograph in the bedroom was sitting at a long kitchen table coloring feverishly. She looked up at him wide eyed and astonished.

"Mama!" She cried. "Look!"

"I see, baby," The woman gave her distracted response. "You did a good job."

It struck him hard, like a freight train to the solar plexus. That voice, the choice of words, her warm breath on his ear and that lavender scent.

You did good, Soldier.

He held the doorframe with his other arm protectively over his vulnerable stomach. Grace turned then, and seeing him she froze. Her eyes went wide at finding him there. She had gotten so used to his prone state that it was bizarre to see him upright. Was he really that big? She should probably introduce herself.

"You're awake," Was all she managed.

The Captain frowned. "How long was I out?"

Grace darted a look to the astounded girl sitting slack jawed at the table. "You don't remember?"

He answered with a clipped, "No."

"Three and a half years," She answered almost breathlessly. She wasn't looking at him. "Don't you remember us?" She asked the vase of wildflowers on the table.

"Three and a half years?" He almost shouted, damning Stark. Recovering himself, he looked apologetically to the girl then back to the woman. "I'm sorry. Should I remember you?"

"I had hoped you would," She whispered. "I mean she wasn't born yet, but I had hoped..."

"Had hoped?" He pressed when she trailed off.

She looked at him then, her pained eyes earnest and pleading, "We're you're family."

The room was spinning. His strong fingers gripping the doorframe, his eyebrows shot up. "Family?" He choked.

The little girl stared up at him with large innocent eyes. They were blue like his and wide like her mothers. She couldn't be his family, he thought, his daughter. Could she?

Suddenly the woman let out a tiny yelp and he looked to her in time to see her clamp her lips shut. She looked back at him, her eyes full of mirth. She shook her head.

"I'm so sorry Captain Rogers," Her apology was sincere though laughter still danced in her eyes . "Scott Lang said you would think it was funny."

"Lang?" He questioned breathlessly. "He put you up to this?"

"Kind of," She replied. "I didn't know until I saw you standing there that I actually planned to do it."

"And that was supposed to be funny?"

She pulled in her lips to try to hide her smile, "A little. I mean after the last few days, it was kind of funny."

"Oh for the love of..." He shook his head. "Who are you?"

"My name is Grace Holland," She answered quite seriously. "This is my daughter Eve. We have a mutual friend in Sam Wilson. He brought you here five days ago. Does any of that sound right to you?"

"Vaguely," He answered with a heavy sigh. He was still feeling the effects of her 'kind of funny' joke. He watched the little girl that wasn't his daughter return to her coloring. "Are you some sort of doctor then?"

"Nurse," She explained as she started to pull bacon from a skillet. "I served two tours in a Combat Support Hospital. Sam figured I could be of some help."

The Captain nodded. Of course Sam had thought she could help. It wasn't like he could just go to a hospital anymore. 

"Thank you."

Grace Holland gave a terse nod. "How are you feeling now, Captain Rogers?"

"Call me Steve, please," He answered, still leaning in the doorway. "And honestly, I've been better."

"Why don't you sit," Grace had a way of saying it so that it was more of a command than a suggestion. He obliged and sat down heavily in an empty chair at the table.

"You've had a fever," She explained, walking around the kitchen island so that she stood over him. "That's a pretty common sign of infection. May I?"

He nodded assent. Her hand was cool and soft on his brow. Her fingers were deft as she felt the lymph nodes in his throat. He looked up at her as she did so. She was close enough that he could make out the milkiness of her skin between the buttons of her pajama top. He chose instead to look at her face. Her work done, she met his eyes with a concerned smile.

"Still warm," She told him. "Has anything like this ever happened before?"

He shook his head. "I haven't had a fever since before. I was sick all the time as a kid. But whatever Tony hit me with, it was new."

They lapsed in to silence. Grace seemed to be working out some sort of puzzle on her head, her mouth twisted in a sort of pucker as she held her thumb to her lips. Suddenly, as though remembering something she had otherwise forgotten, she gasped.

"Oh my gosh, you must be starving. I haven't managed to get anything in you. I hope you don't mind, it's just some bacon and toaster waffles."

Steve gave a tired smile. At the moment he was willing to eat his shoe leather, that was if he could find his shoes.

"That sounds great."

Grace set about to work again in the kitchen and Steve looked again to the child. She was singing to herself, a soft nonsensical limerick as she scribbled in a coloring book. She stopped for a moment to look up at him again before returning to her drawing. She certainly was a cute little thing.

"I really appreciate you taking me in like this," He said.

Grace looked over her shoulder to him, "Like I said, Sam's a friend. There's a box of my husbands old clothes in the attic. Something aught to fit you. I should have thought of it before. After breakfast I'll go have a look."

A familiar picture hung on the fridge, two airmen in fatigues side by side. Steve had been shown the picture before but here in this cozy little house with this woman and child, it seemed wildly out of place.

"Sam's wingman, Riley. He was your husband?"

He watched as her shoulders slumped. He could hear her sigh. "My brother," she finally said softly. "My twin, actually."

He could hear the tear in her voice and wished he could offer some comfort.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Ma'am," Was all he said.

After a few minutes Grace carried over a serving plate heaped with perfect little discs of waffles and a second of bacon. There was milk and syrup already on the table and she brought him a plate and a glass. As she helped Eve, cutting her food in bite size pieces, the Captain served himself, trying as best he could not to appear a glutton.

"There's more if you'd like," Grace told him kindly as she put two waffles and two pieces of bacon on her own plate.

"Thank you," Steve answered graciously between bites. "So your husband then, where is he?"

The question was innocent enough but still she winced. It was her own fault, after all she had said husband without any mention of ex. Her mind turned darkly to when she received the papers in the mail, the final nail in the coffin that told her he never intended to come back. 

Steve could see this subtle change and stopped his chewing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine," She answered tightly. "The truth is I don't know where he is. He left after Eve was born."

Steve lowered his fork. He marveled how any man could leave a woman and his child. It just wasn't right. For a moment she looked so sad as she stared down at her plate of food, and then just like that it was gone. She looked at his clean plate and smiled.

"I'll make you some more," She offered. 

Getting up from the table, she took his plate. He thanked her and then thanked her again when she returned a few minutes later with a fresh stack of waffles.

"No problem," She answered.

She sat in her seat across from him. It was hard to believe that less than a week ago she had been pulling bullets from his chest at this very table. Eve was watching him eat now in silent awe. Never had she seen anything like it before.

"I don't work today," Grace told him. "But after we're done here I'll go in to town and pick up some more groceries."

The Captain looked up from his plate with his mouth full. Swallowing, he wiped his mouth neatly with a paper napkin. His beard rasped against the paper. He needed a shave.

"I'm so sorry, Ma'am. This was just really good."

"Don't be sorry. I'm glad you liked it," She smiled that sweet smile again. "But I'm pretty sure that was the last of the Eggos," She looked at the empty gallon of milk. She had just bought it the day before. "And we could use some more milk."

"I won't be staying long," He assured her.

"Sam left some sort of communication thing. Said he would be in touch when it was safe," She told him, getting up from the table again.

Steve watched her as she went about clearing the table. His expression suddenly serious.

"You understand the risk of me being here?"

She didn't look at him. Her eyes downcast, she nodded slowly.

"Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this," He said.

Grace sighed," I'll just get this cleaned up and if you don't mind I'd like to check your dressings when I'm done."

"Please, let me to help you," He pushed back from the table too fast, his chair scraping loudly. The sudden dizziness was a little concerning and Grace being close, grabbed him under the arm.

"If you really want to help me you'll stay off your feet," She ordered. "You need rest, Captain Rogers. I can manage the dishes. Besides, I'm 99% sure if you go down I'm not going to be able to get you back up."

He was taken aback by the sharpness in her voice. He almost smiled.

"Yes ma'am."


	5. Chapter 5

Grace loaded the groceries in the back of her beat up old Bronco and closed the tailgate. It was her third trip to the store in just as many days. Since waking the good Captain had gone through two loafs of bread, four gallons of milk, an entire value jar of peanut butter, three pounds of apples, almost an entire fryer chicken, and her meatloaf whose recipe called for five pounds of meat and could sustain a small village for a month. He said it reminded him of his mothers. Eve thought the Captain's endless appetite was hilarious. Grace was considering the possibility of tapeworms.

"Ready?" She asked, climbing behind the wheel.

Eve was strapped in her car seat playing with her leapfrog tablet. She met her mothers eyes in the rear view and gave a definitive nod. "Ready."

Aside from eating her out of house and home, his restlessness was driving her nuts. Steve Rogers apparently did not do well with idle time, and every time she turned around she caught him doing something he shouldn't. While admittedly she appreciated that he had fixed the leaky faucet in the hall bath and the squeaky board at the top of the stairs, she had told him to rest. He still had a fever; she didn't need him tinkering with the garbage disposal or fixing the loose banister. He said he liked to be useful.

He checked his communication device daily. There were strict rules to its use. He turned on at varying hours, never leaving it on for more than sixty seconds. Any longer than a minute and Tony Stark, with his infinite genius and tech, could have a precise lock on his location. When Grace asked why not just use a burner phone like in the movies Steve had made a face. Apparently Stark had cracked those years ago. This was much safer he said, though she couldn't see how.

She had considered calling the police. Just once, as she lay awake on the couch staring at the ceiling. At last report there was a million dollar reward for information leading to the apprehension of Captain Steve Rogers. She hadn't asked for any of this. She had expressly said she wanted nothing to do with it. Sam had been the one to dump this in her lap, twisting her arm until she agreed. He was the one who had used Riley against her. She couldn't be expected to get along just for the sake of getting along. She had Eve to think about and their future. They might have said money couldn't buy happiness but a million dollars sure could solve a lot of problems. 

She regretted the thought as soon as she had it.

Captain Rogers wasn't so bad. In fact, he was kind of nice in that gratingly polite sort of way. He called her ma'am and thanked her incessantly. And Eve adored him. There weren't many men in her little world and she relished in the Captain's attention. He built the best block towers and when he put her on his shoulders she could almost touch the sky. Evie Holland was quite in love and Grace was pretty sure it would break her little heart if her mother had her new boyfriend arrested.

The truck bounced as she hit the dirt road leading towards the house. The summer sun was still bright in the sky and the truck kicked up a trail of dust. As the house came in to view, Grace first gave an easy sigh, happy to be home, and then she frowned.

What the hell was he doing on the roof?

There was a pile of wood and old shingles on the ground when she got out of the truck. Eager to get out and find her playmate, Eve was impatiently tugging at the five point straps of her car seat until Grace released her. Clamoring out of the truck, she bounced on the balls of her feet.

"Hi Steve!" She called.

"Hi Eve," He called back.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Grace demanded. She had her hands on her hips as she glared up at him. With the sun behind him, she couldn't see that he was smiling. "Get down before you break your neck."

"Yes Ma'am."

"Use the -."

He jumped from the second story roof as though it were nothing, landing lithely on his feet.

"Ladder," She finished with a grumble. "What on earth were you doing up there?"

"You had some shingles that needed replacing and once I pulled those up I found some rotted boards," He explained it as though it all made perfect sense.

"How would you know that unless you were on the roof in the first place?"

Eve was pulling on his arm in an attempt to climb him like a tree. "Because you had all the materials for the repair in the barn. I went up to take a look and sure enough. It was an easy fix."

Grace frowned. He was shirtless in a pair of worn Levi's. She should have been immune, after all, she had seen him shirtless for the majority of knowing him, but now his chest was glistening with the sweat of exertion. The bandages were gone, his wounds close to fully healed, and somehow he appeared larger, fuller; his muscles harder. Maybe it was part of his strength returning or maybe it was all the milk he drank. Either way, Grace felt she needed a shower.

"You're supposed to be resting not fixing my roof," She complained.

"You could just say 'thank you'," He was smiling at her again as he took the bags from the back of the truck.

"You have a fever," She argued, closing the tailgate and following him in to the house.

"I feel fine."

"I gave you an order, Soldier," Her voice was shrill. It had a tendency to get that way when she wasn't getting her way. "You're supposed to be taking it easy."

He dropped the bags on the kitchen island. Turning on her, she stopped short.  
"Please Grace, let me do this," His rich tenor was somber. "As my way of saying thanks."

Why was her heart beating so fast? Maybe it was his sincerity or the way he said her name. Maybe it was those deep blue eyes, one flecked with a touch of green, staring directly in to her soul. She swallowed and licked her lips.

"Okay."

"Thank you," He said. "Now why don't you get changed. I put a lasagna in for dinner and it should be ready in fifteen minutes."

She blinked, "You cooked me dinner? Us?" She corrected quickly .

He gave a half smile, the kind that made him look like a kid. "It's nothing fancy. Just the kind you had in the freezer."

Grace rolled her lips together and then smiled. "Thank you, Captain."

"You're welcome. Now go change; I can keep an eye on Eve and get this stuff put away."

She agreed, somewhat in a daze. She couldn't think of the last time someone had cooked for her outside of the fry cook at McDonald's. She headed towards the stairs, only to be stopped as she reached the doorway.

"Oh and Grace, you can't give me an order. Technically I outrank you."

She let out a soft snort of laughter.

"Yes sir."

Then she was up the stairs.

*********

"'Come on, Rainbow Fish,' they called. 'Come and play with us!' 'Here I come,' said the Rainbow Fish and, happy as a splash, he swam off to join his friends."

"The end!" Eve announced.

"The end," Grace echoed. She set aside the storybook and kissed her daughter's brow. "Goodnight Little Bean. I love you."

"Goodnight Mama, " Eve yawned, her eyes heavy. "Goodnight Steve."

Grace looked up, surprised. The Captain was standing in the open door of her bedroom, his shoulder against the jam and his arms folded across his chest. He looked like he had been standing there a while. His cheek twitched in a slow smile.

"Goodnight Eve."

"Hug and a kiss?" The toddler asked.

Grace's brow wrinkled, "Oh honey, I don't..."

He crossed the room in three long strides. Leaning over the tiny bed he looked like a giant as he planted a quick peck on her crown. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a squeeze. A ball formed in Grace's throat as she watched.

"Sleep tight, kiddo."

They were downstairs in the kitchen before Grace would even look at him and even then only in quick glances.

"Is something wrong?"

"You mean besides you being here in the first place?" She was wiping at the spotless counter with a dish towel and then without warning tossed it in the sink. "I don't want you here. I never wanted you here."

At first he looked surprised, and then a little hurt. He stood straight, his hands at his sides. "I'm sorry if I did something to upset you."

"You invaded my home, Steve. My life!" Her voice had gone shrill again and her mouth hung open, her lips quivering, as she struggled to find the words. It was the first time she'd addressed him by name. "And what about Eve?"

"This is about Eve?"

Looking away, she composed herself. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. "She getting attached to you. When Shane left I promise myself that I wouldn't be one of those single moms who let their kid get attached to random men."

"Grace, I'm sorry. You have to know I would never do anything to hurt Eve, or you," He felt the urge to reach out to her, to touch her in some way. He didn't.

Her shoulders slumped as she leaned against the counter. "You show up and you fix my roof and do the little odd jobs around the house; you play with my kid, carry her around piggy back and kiss her goodnight. That might fine and good now, but what happens when you leave? She's going to be devastated and I'm going to be the one stuck with a broken-hearted little girl."

He didn't know what to say. She wasn't wrong. It wasn't like he could stay forever.

"Grace, I'm sorry."

She sniffed bitterly. "Yeah, me too."


	6. Chapter 6

She still hadn't reclaimed her bedroom. Captain Rogers tried, insisting that he would have been just fine downstairs on the couch, but she was stubborn that way. He was her guest and technically speaking he was still supposed to be convalescing. Ultimately she won, so when she lay awake beating herself up for being too hard on him, she did it on the living room couch.

It wasn't his fault. He couldn't be blamed for being nice to her kid. He wasn't trying to be cruel. He was simply trying to make the best of a bad situation, like she should have been instead of worrying about what was going to happen after he was gone. If anything, the fault lied with her and her own insecurities.

She had honestly forgotten what it was like to have a man around the house. Not just a man, but another capable adult. By cooking dinner he had taken over a burden that would have otherwise fallen on her. When he fixed something around the house he was relieving her of stress. Hell, she had known about the stupid roof for over a year, she just hadn't gotten around to hiring a handyman to do it. But this wasn't about lasagna, or the roof, or even Eve. Not really.

She couldn't stop mind her from turning to her husband. Shane had been the one to insist on buying the house out in the country. It would be a good place for them to raise a family, he had said. The projects wouldn't be that bad. They used Grace's GI bill and what little money they had saved for the down. She was already pregnant with Eve by the time they moved in. Everything was was supposed to be perfect. The new house, a baby on the way. Shane said they would finally be able to reconnect, find each other again. He had never really liked his wife being in the Army. It emasculated him in some way she could never understand. So when she discharged it was like starting over. Except Shane had already started over, with a woman who lived outside Laredo and wasn't his wife.

It had been so easy for him to leave. In the letter he sent with the divorce papers he had said he knew she would be fine. She was tough. Like that somehow made up for it. She was a new mother with no support system and a house payment she couldn't afford. She didn't feel tough. She felt broken. It was her greatest fear.

She considered the very real possibility that something was wrong with her; that she was defective somehow. Maybe she had been a lousy wife, maybe she hadn't given him what he needed. When she finally realized the fault lied in Shane it did little to make her feel better but she promised herself, for Eve's sake, that she wouldn't raise her daughter thinking all men left. Grace purposely didn't date, she didn't bring men around Eve, for that reason.

But now there was the Captain, who knew none of this. Steve, she corrected herself. Steve who was only trying to be nice. Who was going out of his way in fact, to do so. Steve who had given her the chance to take a five minute shower before dinner and then asked her about her day. Steve who kissed her daughter goodnight. Steve who didn't know how utterly destroyed she had been when her husband had refused to do those things.

Grace crept up the stairs in her camisole and cotton shorts. The boards didn't creak where she expected them too. The Captain - Steve - had taken care of that. First she checked on Eve, made sure she was sleeping soundly in her bed. She was. Then she turned to the closed door across the hall.

She hesitated with her fist in the air, willing herself to knock. This was going to be harder than she thought. Apologies, at least the meaningful ones, were not her strong suit. 

"Captain Rogers?" She whispered too softly. 

He didn't answer. 

She knocked. "Captain?"

Still nothing. Perhaps he was asleep. It wasn't like he didn't have a history of sleeping like the dead. Grace's head dropped in defeat. If she didn't get her feelings off her chest now she might never have the nerve. Her fist rested against the door.

"Steve?"

That's when she heard it; the sound every nurse (and mother) could recognize (and dreaded) hearing through a closed door. Retching.

"Steve," She called again, this time concerned as she tried the doorknob. She wasn't prepared for what she found.

He was on all fours at the foot of the bed, his arms shaking as he brought up the last of his stomach contents. The frothy mess before him was pink - meat and cheese lasagna - and smelled of turned milk and bile. He turned his head, a mix of shame and fear in his eyes, and he held up a trembling hand bidding her to come no closer.

Lucky for him she wasn't so good at taking orders, even if he technically was a Captain.

"I'm so sorry," He choked.

"Your burning up," She said, her cool hands stroking his flushed face. 

His body tensed and he started to heave. There was nothing left to bring up. Kneeling beside him, uncaring about the mess, Grace rubbed his back until the spasms were over. He was drenched in sweat. She needed to cool him down.

"Come on, Soldier. On your feet," She pulled on his arm. Trying to get him to move was like trying to move a ship on dry land.

"I can't," His voice was raspy. 

"Yes you can," Grace insisted, giving him another tug. "Come on now."

"Grace, I..." His eyes were glassy with fever as he looked up at her. She could tell he wasn't all there and it honestly scared her.

"Please Steve," She pleaded. "I need you to try. For me."

And so he did. Upright on his knees, he buried his nose in her stomach while he hugged her tight around the waist. Grace pulled and he struggled, until finally he gained his feet. Grace wrapped her arms around him, trying to hold him steady as he leaned on her. Barton was right, he was heavy.

"See," Grace huffed, trying her best to sound chipper. "Not so bad. Come on now. Here we go."

"I'm sorry," He croaked. He sounded like he was giving his maximum effort, yet he was barely shuffling his feet.

"Don't apologize," She replied as she pulled him towards the bathroom.

He was winded yet he still persisted, "Grace."

"It's okay," She insisted. "It's going to be okay."

Finally reaching the tiny stall in the bathroom, she struggled to keep him on his feet as she groped for the faucet knob. She gasped as the cold water sprayed them both and Steve slumped against her, pinning her to the shower wall. His chest heaved from the effort it had taken to travel 20 feet. Heat radiated from him as his now sodden clothes clung to his hard and solid body.

He rested his forehead against the cool tile above her shoulder, his sandy hair plastered to his forehead. His breath came in heavy panting bursts, tickling her cheek.

"Grace."

"I'm here."

"I'm sorry."

"Please stop saying that."

They clung desperately to each other, his arms heavy over her shoulders and her arms around his body. She adjusted her hold around his waist, balling the back of his shirt in her fists. The stall was small, no bigger than a standard closet, and the large man took up the majority of the space. It was hard for her breathe with him pressing so close and yet she was afraid to move. She was afraid to let go.

"Grace," He rasped in her ear again.

"I'm sorry," Water clung to her lashes and her words came in a tumbled rush. "I'm sorry for earlier. I'm sorry for what I said."

His head turned just a fraction of an inch so he could see her better. She blinked and the water from her lashes rolled down her cheeks looking like tears. She chanced a glance at him.

"Seeing the way you are with Eve, the way she looks at you, it scares me because she could so easily love someone whose going to leave and I know how bad that hurts."

He dropped his head, unable to meet her eyes. Letting go of her, he ran his hand over his face. She then watched as he ducked his head beneath the shower stream and took a gulp of water. He filled his mouth a second time and in a move that Grace found both repulsive and sexy in its inherent masculinity, he spit. 

Her breath shuttered and a shiver went through her as his hot mouth closed down on hers. His lips were softer than she would have expected as he pressed her harder in to the wall, his fingers snarled in her wet hair. She felt a small void start to crack open inside her chest, the sharp reminder of what could never be. She wanted to push him away. Instead she clung to him tighter.

When he broke away her head was spinning. She couldn't move. Steve's head dropped again so that he rested his forehead against the shower wall, his labored breath fogging the tiles. Grace leaned her head back, grateful that his eyes were closed. Holding him that way, her heart pounding against his, she didn't want him to see her cry.


	7. Chapter 7

He was dreaming. He knew this because of Peggy. Somewhere in the far recesses of his feverish brain he knew Peggy couldn't be there; not beautiful and vibrant and young. Peggy was dead. He had been at the funeral, had carried the casket; so she couldn't be here now smiling and offering her congratulations.

Everyone was congratulating him. Bucky and Nick Fury; Sam, Natasha. Agent Coulson was there too and Steve had hardly had the chance to know him. Even Tony, despite it all. They were all there shaking his hand and clapping him on the back, congratulating him. Congratulating him for what though? What had he done? He couldn't remember and that unnerved him.

And Peggy. Man, was she beautiful. Always his best gal. She was taking him by the hand, rubbing slow circles in his palm with her thumb. He could feel it, the gentle way it tickled. He wanted to keep her there that way, the way he best liked to remember, and then she opened her mouth to speak but instead of her pretty English lilt it was Grace's voice, sweet and comforting.

"You did good, Soldier. You're going to be fine."

He could still feel his hand in Peggy's when he woke up. His eyes were heavy and he was having a hard time getting them to focus. Grace was sitting sideways in the chair in the corner of her bedroom, her knees tucked up under her chin. She looked like she was trying to shrink; like she wanted to hide. Her hair was loose. He hadn't seen her wear it that way before, and it fell over her shoulders like a shimmering cloak. He thought of Thor and closed his eyes again.

"What if I can't?" He was asking, though he didn't know why.

"Fear not," The great Asgardian answered, the weight of his hand solid on Steve's shoulder. "You're a good man."

"How did you do it?" Steve wondered. "How did you make it work?"

Thor looked off in the distance, his expression thoughtful for a moment. "You're a good man, Steve Rogers. A good man."

And it echoed in his ears until he wanted to scream. 

"Do you remember your mother?"

Steve looked to Bucky, but it wasn't Bucky as he knew him now. This wasn't the Winter Soldier. This Bucky was whole, his eyes un-tormented by dark demons. Steve looked at him in bewilderment and Sargent James Buchanan Barnes looked back at him with an easy smile.

"Of course, she was my mother."

"I remember mine too," Bucky sighed contently. "Everything was simpler then."

"Yeah, it was," Steve agreed.

"Remember the smell of hotdogs at Dodgers Stadium?"

Steve smiled, "Yeah."

"Taking the train out to Coney Island. Coming home to your moms pot roast."

"I remember."

"Would you go back?"

He thought about it as though it weren't the theoretical question that it was. Like his answer could hold merit. Could he go back to a simpler time? Should he?

"No."

Bucky looked to him with unburdened eyes. "Why not?"

Steve took a deep breath, "There's too much for me to protect here."

He opened his eyes again and Bucky was gone. Grace was sitting on the side of the bed now, her face haloed in soft golden light. She dabbed at his brow with a cool wet rag.

"Grace?" He asked, because he couldn't be sure at the moment. She might open her mouth and Nick Fury would speak.

"Shhh," She soothed softly and in her own voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

And his head fell back on the pillow again.

It was just the two of them in the black abyss. He was holding her hands, rubbing slow circles in her palms. She looked around, her eyes wide. She was less afraid and more curious.

"I'm not going anywhere," He used her own words, his voice strong and sure.

Grace stopped her looking around. She was beautiful, her expression completely unmasked. He never noticed before the soft slope of her smooth brow or the way her cheek curved so that fit perfectly in his cupped hand. He touched her, finding her cheek warm and real. He ran a thumb over her lower lip and she didn't shy away.

"I'm not going anywhere," He echoed.

Turning in to his touch, she kissed his palm.

"Good."


	8. Chapter 8

Grace couldn't sleep, even if she wanted to. It was impossible to turn off the whirlwind of activity in her head, every thought involving Steve. She was a big girl, capable of compartmentalizing. She could separate what happened in the shower and the real issue at hand, even if her lips were still burning with his fevered kiss.

Something was really wrong.

Despite being a capable nurse, she was in way over her head here. She didn't know the first thing about Super Soldier Serum or Stark technology. What if this anti-serum of his wasn't as temporary as Sam had claimed? After all, what did he know, he was just a man in a glorified bird costume. What if the real effects were only just now taking hold? What if they got worse? What if whatever this was killed him?

She watched his eyes flicker behind closed lids and wondered what he might be dreaming. What went through the unconscious mind of a superhero? Did he save the world even as he slept? Or maybe he dreamt about something simpler. In Afghanistan she had known a soldier who dreamt regularly of eating pizza in New York City. In a time of war all he had really wanted was a hot slice with extra pepperoni.

Steve slept on his back, his body long and rigid in the bed. He showed no signs of distress but his skin was still flushed. She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the steady drum of his heart, and wondered at what was going on inside of him. What could she be missing?

That was when it hit her.

*****

Steve hadn't suffered motion sickness since 1942 when he had ridden the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island, but Grace's driving was pretty close to what he remembered. She had dropped Eve off at an elderly neighbors, claiming an emergency at the hospital and now they were bouncing along a midnight road, her speedometer stuck somewhere near 80.

"Grace," He winced in the passenger seat. The heater was on and he was wrapped in the quilt from her bed. "What are we doing? I can't just walk in to the hospital."

"You're not walking in anywhere," She was white knuckling the wheel, her eyes narrowed at the road. "I plan to find you a wheelchair."

He winced again as she hit a pothole. "You know what I meant."

She was wearing purple scrubs, her hair pulled back in a neat pony tail. "All I have to do is get you to the old x-ray lab. No one ever uses anymore and it's mostly just for storage now."

"If we get caught..."

"We won't!" She cut him off sharply. Rolling her lips again, she continued softer, "We won't get caught. We run tests on inpatients at night all the time, that's how we keep up. All you have to do is keep your head down and stay quiet. Try not to do anything Captain America-y."

"Copy that," He groaned. At the moment he didn't figure that to be a problem.

Grace's heart was pounding as she pulled up to the VA hospital. It was an old brick building, four stories tall and perfectly rectangular in shape. For the most part the front lot was empty. Hospital staff parked along the south side of the building so Grace headed to the north end. It was closer to their target anyway. Leaving Steve in the truck, she headed to the side entrance and used a keypad to let herself in. A wheelchair was easy enough to come by and she headed back for her patient.

"You're sure about this?" With his hands on her shoulders as she helped him out of the car, he had to be certain.

Grace met his eyes in the dark. "Something is wrong, Steve. We have to know what we're facing here."

He liked the way she said 'we' and that she was now addressing him by his first name.

Grace wheeled him inside. Steve sat slumped in the wheelchair with a hoody low over his eyes. From beneath downcast lashes, he surveyed the empty hall. The lights were low here and the walls painted a ghastly green. Who one earth thought that particular color promoted healing? The government, he remembered. They loved that budget friendly pea green.

His chauffeur knew the halls, she knew how to avoid the security cameras. Her plan wasn't foolproof by any means, but she knew to anyone watching she looked like nothing more than a nurse pushing a patient. If anyone asked she had taken the poor suffering soul out for a cigarette or to get some fresh air. But no one asked because no one saw them. The hospital ran on a skeleton crew at night - budget cuts they said. Usually Grace would call bullshit, but tonight she was grateful for the deserted hospital halls.

The old x-ray lab was on the ground floor on the north end of the building, completely cut off from the modernized radiology department on the south side. Staff avoided the old lab at all costs but the outdated equipment still functioned and was maintained as some sort of write off. Grace had brought her keys just in case but found the door unlocked. She backed in and closed the door before flicking on the light.

"See, easy," She announced proudly.

Steve arched a brow. The machine looked like something out of his era and the room was littered with old gurneys and abandoned medical equipment.

"You know how to use that thing?"

Grace puffed her cheeks as she looked around the room. "Yes? I'm like 70% sure. No, make it 80%. How worried are you about radiation exposure?"

As it turned out he was more worried about it than he might have thought, at least in regards to her own exposure. He insisted on her putting on a full lead gown and thyroid cover before she even tried to get the machine up and running.

"Alright, now that goes there and you," She flicked her eyes his way. "Off with your shirt and up on the table." 

He moved gingerly as he did as he was instructed. His sweatshirt tucked under his head, he lay back on the x-ray table. Not wanting to take any undue risk she lay a lead apron over his waist. He gave a strained smiled.

"This won't hurt a bit. Unless I somehow manage to blow the building up," She winked at him in an earnest attempt at a jest. "That might hurt."

"It might," He returned almost weakly.

Neither of them brought up the danger in what they were doing. Her aiding and abetting of a notorious criminal; sneaking him in to a government building to perform unauthorized medical procedures. The consequences they both faced if caught. Rather than think about it, Grace squeezed his arm in reassurance before slipping behind the safety wall.

Five minutes later the building was still standing and there was an almost perfect image of Steve's upper body on the console screen. Grace sat at the desk while he stood behind her, leaning heavily on the back of her chair. She had her thumb against her bottom lip again, her eyes narrowed in consternation. She had just had her fears confirmed.

"Damn it," She muttered under her breath. She looked up at him, questioning.

His jaw was set squarely as he looked at his X-ray on the screen, the glow casting sickly shadows over his sallow face. Somehow he knew he was looking at the source of his mysterious illness, courtesy of Tony Stark.

"You'll have to cut it out."

*****

Steve lay on a gurney watching Grace mutter to herself. She was able to gather everything she thought she might need and now she was talking herself through the process. She kept returning to the X-ray, as though to reconfirm the diagnosis. His eyes heavy, he wanted to smile.

"Grace," His voice was thick, almost hoarse. "We don't have a lot of time."

She stopped her pacing. She knew he was right. They had been in the X-ray lab for forty minutes with the door locked and a chair shoved under the doorknob. Every minute was a borrowed one. She took a deep shuttering breath and visibly swallowed.

"There's nothing for the pain," She told him.

"That's alright," He grimaced. "I'm not afraid of a little pain."

She had him lay on his side with his arm above his head so his body stretched in a long beautiful line. She marveled at his perfect anatomy; it was something out of a text book. She could make out the individual muscles contoured to his ribs, the grove of his armpit, the build of bicep. He was built like a Greek god, no, better than a Greek god. He was a Super Soldier.

"I saw your exhibit at the Smithsonian," She mused as she covered his kidney area with betadine.

He made a sound, something like a snort, "Yeah, me too."

"You disapprove?"

His cheek twitched; the facial equivalent of a shrug.

Grace continued, a scalpel pilfered from a tracheostomy kit steady in her hand.

"You volunteered."

His eyes were fixed and a point on the wall. Resolute, Grace thought. His mind made up, there was no changing it.

"I wanted to serve my God and my country."

"But weren't you scared?"

"Of course," He answered. "But that wasn't the point. Fear is only temporary. Regret lasts forever."

"Hmm," Grace's face flickered in a smile. "That's nice. Did you get that from an inspirational coffee mug?"

Steve snorted again. "Close. A t-shirt they sold at the Smithsonian gift shop."

A burst of laughter escaped her, but she quickly recovered. "Hold still now."

"Yes ma'am."

She glanced at his unwavering face. "Are you ready?"

"Yes ma'am."

She released a slow breath. "Here we go."

No one ever tells you how much worse slow pain is than instant trauma. When it's instant your body has a way of coping so that your mind doesn't register the pain all at once. When it's slow though, drawn out, you don't get that luxury. You feel it. All of it. Grace cut as quickly as she could.

"The thing with being afraid is you never want to show it," Steve said with pinpricks behind his eyes. He had definitely felt worse so he chalked it up to the fever. "In the history books they're all about that 'can do, never give up' attitude, but I was afraid. I was just more afraid of what would happen if I didn't do it. I was pretty wimpy back then. And even afterwards. Every mission I went on I was afraid, I was just more afraid of what could happen if I sat back and did nothing."

Grace swallowed. There was a tightness in her throat and she looked down at the red muscle in his lower back that she had just exposed. Him being awake made it worse because she knew that as long as he was talking he was aware of what she was doing. She was terrified.

"It's okay to be scared," He said as though reading her mind. "It keeps you alert.

"I don't see anything yet," She confessed.

"Keep going."

So she did. Her incision was only four or five inches long; she was trying to minimize damage, but as she cut deeper she started to pray that she had accurately judged where to start. She checked Steve's face again. Stoic. The muscle in his cheek was taunt. His eyes still fixed on the wall behind her. Blood didn't affect her, but still she wanted to throw up.

"So are you afraid now?" She asked.

He teeth we clenched. "Of more than you might think."

"Me too," She answered softly.

Suddenly the arm above his head moved and he grabbed her wrist. Grace gasped and she was about to scold him when she heard footsteps outside in the hall. Her heart jumped in her chest and her wide panicked eyes met his serious ones. He pursed his lips, his instruction to stay quiet.

The footsteps stopped and Grace was acutely aware of how loud her breathing was. She was certain whoever was in the hall could hear it. The fear was unjustified she knew, but still she held her breath. After a moment her hammering heart protested the lack of oxygen and then she was gulping air. This was not good.

The doorknob rattled. She closed her eyes. Her back was to the door and on the gurney Steve was trying to move. That was when she saw it. The color of charcoal and glinting in the low light, it was embedded in his inflamed deep tissue and encapsulated in pus.

"Wait," She hissed, stopping him.

His lips didn't move, "We need to move now."

Thank you, Captain America.

"I can get it," Her whisper was hurried. "Just give me..."

She could hear the jangle of keys.

"Grace," He was the one hissing now, struggling to get off the gurney.

The doorknob rattled again. She was two knuckles deep in his hot muscle and he tightened around her.

"Almost..."

"Now," He ordered.

The janitor finally got the door unlocked and pushed hard against the levered chair. He blanched at the scene he found.

"Son of a bitch," he complained loudly. "I do not get paid enough."

Blood covered an otherwise white sheet on an overturned gurney and there was a used scalpel on the floor. A table had been disturbed and betadine spilled in a brown ooze down a metal stand tray. And beneath it, undetected by the janitor a small blood covered BB, with electric shock capabilities and coated in one of a kind anti-serum technology, courtesy of Tony Stark.


	9. Chapter 9

Woodpeckers were the assholes of the bird world. Especially when they were trying to peck through the paneling of the house while the occupants were attempting to sleep off a long hard night. From where she slept in the chair in the living room, Grace groaned and made a halfhearted attempt to bang on the wall.

"Go away!" She complained loudly.

After their harrowing escape through the hospital ventilation system (thank you Captain America) pure adrenaline had kept her going long enough to see them home. Once there however, and once the reality of the nights events had settled over her, she had barely made it to the chair before passing out. Steve, still suffering the aftereffects of Starks magic BB and Grace's exploratory surgery, had taken the couch.

Now though, he was awake and the world appeared in a new light. He could feel his cells regenerating, his body healing. His vision was clear, his senses acute. From across the room he could smell the dried blood - his blood - on Grace's scrubs and her lavender shampoo. He took a deep lungful. For the first time since coming to the country house he felt unencumbered. He felt strong. He felt truly himself. Or at least the self that he had become with the super serum.

He watched Grace curled in the chair. From across the room he could make out the fine golden hairs on the back of her arms, the light spattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose, the milky blue veins in her eyelids. It was like seeing her for the first time. She sighed in her sleep, her body relaxed.

She was beautiful.

And she weighed next to nothing in his arms. The sun was just starting to creep over the horizon and Eve didn't need to be fetched from the neighbors for another few hours. There was no point in Grace remaining in the chair. Not when she has a perfectly good bed upstairs. Her head cradled against his neck, Steve carried her effortlessly up the stairs and into the bedroom.

"Hmmm, what?" She mumbled sleepily as he lowered her to the bed.

"Shh," he hushed gently. "Get some sleep."

She opened her eyes, innocent and clouded with dreams. "Steve... Cap..."

"It's okay," He smiled down at her. "Sleep."

"But your fever?"

"Gone."

"I should..."

"Sleep, Grace. Just sleep. You've earned it."

She curled on her side, a pillow clutched to her chest, and her eyes closed. She looked peaceful. Like a prince stealing the affections of the princess, he leaned over her and kissed her smooth brow. Then he left her to find what more he could fix around the house.

*****

5:27pm, Steve stepped out of the shower, a towel slung low around his trim waist, his timing perfect. After an afternoon spent chopping and stacking firewood in the shed, he had given himself enough time to shower and shave before Grace and Eve got home. 

In the two weeks that he had spent as part of the Holland household, not including his first 5 days spent unconscious, he had familiarized himself with the girls' routine. He appreciated the simplicity of their day to day life. 5:00am Grace got up and started her pot of coffee, taking her time to wake up, at 6:30am without fail Eve came down the stairs, a big bundle of energy in an adorably tiny package. They left the house at 7:15am, leaving Steve to his own devices. He found ways in which to make himself useful, making repairs around the house, preparations for the change of seasons. He found a motorcycle in the barn, some relic left behind by her ex-husband, that if he could get running again Grace could sell for a small profit. Anything to kill time until 5:45pm when they returned. Then there was dinner and Eve's made up games to play; bath time and bedtime stories. Eve was put to bed promptly at 8:30pm and Grace said goodnight herself soon after, but it was these evening hours when they most resembled what a family might look like, that Steve found himself looking forward to most.

It was funny that for everything he stood for, the values he fought to protect, that he had never pictured himself with a family. Before, when he had been just some sickly kid from Brooklyn, girls hadn't given him the time of day. Then afterwards, when he'd become the Super Soldier it hadn't been part of the plan. Sure he had thought about it; Peggy. A normal life. But it just wasn't feasible. It was better to not think about it than to live with a disillusion. But now here with Grace and Eve, he could imagine what it might be like. 

He finished dressing and headed downstairs to the kitchen. He had a few minutes left so he took the time to check his comm link, watching the second hand on the clock above the stove. 60 seconds, that's all he allowed himself. 

He hadn't heard from his team since they had left him in Grace's capable care and he didn't expect today to be any different. It was more out of duty than desire that he even turned the thing on. So he was honestly a little surprised when within a second of powering on, the device actually chimed. Ten letters flashed on the screen and he committed them to memory before powering it down again.

Following the procedural algorithm of converting each letter to a number, adding four, dividing by six, taking away three he had a phone number. There was landline mounted to the wall in the corner of the kitchen above a small writing table. All he had to do was dial. From there he knew he would receive direction to a rendezvous, a safe place where he and the team would debrief and start fighting the good fight again. All he had to do was dial the phone and he could go back to his life as Captain America.

He could hear tires on the dirt road. He didn't have to question who it was; by now he knew the sound of the engine. He got up from the kitchen table and walked out to the back porch.

"Hi Steve!" Eve called merrily as she climbed down out of the back of the truck.

"Hi Eve," He smiled, meeting her at the top of the steps. "How are you?"

"Good!" She cried. "Mama says we can watch The Little Mermaid after dinner."

"Is that so?" He rumpled the curls on top of her head as she headed for the house before turning to her mother. "Can I give you a hand with that?"

Grace was pulling food containers from the front seat. She squinted in the afternoon sun, "Thanks, I've got it. How was your day?"

He watched as she balanced two pizza boxes expertly against her hip while slinging her purse over her shoulder. The scrubs she wore today were hunter green in color and set off the green in her eyes. Her long dark hair was in a braid down her back and she wiped a lock out of her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled.

They hadn't talked about the kiss in the shower the night that they snuck in to the hospital. Grace didn't bring it up because she had convinced herself that in his feverish state he might not remember it, and Steve hadn't because he felt he had taken advantage. Both thought of it often.

The tips of Steve's ears turned pink as he thought about it now.

"Just another day. How was yours? What's The Little Mermaid?"

He made no mention of the message on the comm link.

"It's a Disney movie. It's got a lovesick mermaid, clueless prince, singing lobster, you'll like it," Grace grinned.

"Sounds... interesting."

"It's a cartoon, but I picked up some pizza, thought we could make a night of it."

Steve held the screen door open for her, catching her intoxicating floral scent as she brushed past him.

It had been almost three weeks, one more night wasn't going to hurt. He decided he would call tomorrow.


	10. Chapter 10

Her nose buried in her cellphone, Grace was grinning like an idiot. After watching The Little Mermaid Eve had regaled them with her rendition of Kiss The Girl, complete with wet puckering kisses and Grace had been lucky enough to have her phone on hand to record it. Riding the elevator down to the ground floor of the hospital, she had the volume low and she laughed out loud as she watched Eve jump on Steve and give him a sloppy kiss on the cheek.

The elevator dinged and Grace looked up. 2nd floor: administration. Not her stop. The doors slid open and three men stepped in to the car with her. An aging Colonel with a pot belly in full dress uniform, a lacky in fatigues and a slight man in an immaculate suit.

Grace's heart jumped in to her throat.

"Morning," the Colonel acknowledged her tersely.

Grace slipped her phone in to her pocket. "Good morning, sir."

The doors slid closed. She was trapped. Her mind turned to crawling through the ventilation system and she became claustrophobic. She couldn't breathe. The elevator started its impossibly slow descent again and she thought her knees might give out.

"What is that intoxicating scent?" His suit probably cost more than her mortgage and he was standing directly at her elbow. He was wearing cologne, something expensive she was sure, and it made her want to sneeze.

"I'm sorry?" She was fighting to hide the tremble in her voice.

"Your perfume," He said with a rakish smirk. "What is that? Chanel, Dior, Victoria's Secret?"

Grace let out a shuttering breath, biting her lip. "I'm not wearing perfume, sir, but a young private did puke on my shoes this morning. Perhaps that's what you're smelling."

She was staring straight ahead but could sense him recoil. The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. The men waited for her to move. Damn chivalry.

"Excuse me, gentlemen."

"Ma'am," The Colonel nodded.

She was painfully aware of how fast she moved but she couldn't wait to get out of there and put as much distance between her and the smirky man with his charm and air of extravagance.

Funny, the man behind Iron Man always looked bigger on TV.

*****

Steve was in the barn again trying to get the engine of the old motorcycle to turn over. He was in an undershirt, grease smeared across his cheek, his focus entirely on getting the bike up and running. He didn't want to leave it unfinished. He had to accomplish this one thing before he made his phone call.

All night he had tossed on the couch, dreading making the call. Of hearing a voice on the other end of the line instructing him of where to go. He knew he was putting it off - avoiding the inevitable - but he didn't want to leave. Not now. Not yet. Not when there was so much left for him to do here.

He heard tires on the dirt road and looked up, confused. It wasn't even noon yet. Throwing a long leg over the back of the Triumph, he wiped his dirty hands on a rag as he headed towards the open door.

The panic written on her face was concerning and she launched herself out of the Bronco. Steve quickened his step.

"What's wrong? Is it Eve?" He demanded. He took her by the arms, squeezing them in his viselike grip.

"You have to go," Her eyes were wide and her lips trembling. "We messed up - I messed up. Stark, he's here."

The Captain's brow creased as his blue eyes darted around. No drones. No giant red tin-man.

"What do you mean Stark is here?"

"At the hospital, just now," She clarified. "The BB, the one we cut out of you, it was found by the custodian and reported. Stark is there right now asking questions. It's only a matter of time before he traces it here, if he hasn't already. Steve, you have to go!"

A chill ran through his body. 

"Okay," He breathed. "Okay. Where is Eve?"

"At daycare," Her brow wrinkled. "Steve, there's no time!"

He wasn't listening to her anymore. The wheels behind his crystalline eyes were turning as he worked the problem.

"Go upstairs and pack a bag for the both of you," He ordered. 

"What?" She demanded shrilly. "You aren't listening to me. You need to run!"

"I'm not going anywhere without you!" His voice was stern and he punctuated his statement by giving her shoulders a shake. She was seeing the Captain in his full authority for the first time. He softened as soon as he recognized the fear in her eyes. "You said yourself that it's only a matter of time before he traces me here - to you. If I'm not here when he gets here, he's going to know that you helped me. I can't leave you to face him on your own, I won't. I will not leave you here unprotected."

Her lips parted as though she might speak. He cut off any protest with a hard, demanding kiss. 

"Please, Grace, do as I say. You've got five minutes."


	11. Chapter 11

They drove for two days, seemingly without aim. Every time Grace thought she had her bearings Steve redirected them. It got to the point where she gave up trying. With her forehead pressed to the window, she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was anywhere else; easy enough to do since she didn't know exactly where anywhere was.

Steve stole a car from an impound lot outside of Boulder. Fifty miles away, they ditched the Bronco. Sad, really. For all it's gas guzzling and annoying idiosyncrasies, Grace loved that truck. When she was checking that they left nothing behind, she had taken the registration out of the glove box just as a token to keep. Steve had praised her on her keen presence of mind. He had no idea that she was merely being sentimental.

They swapped cars again somewhere near the Utah border. This time Grace took nothing.

Being a super soldier meant that the Captain didn't require sleep like most. He drove through the night, his vigilance unwavering while Grace slipped in and out of awareness in the backseat. When she slept she dreamt of being in the car and when she woke she was still there, so that the only way she could tell the difference was if Iron Man was bearing down on them. Twice she imagined Eve being torn away from her by some unknown force and Grace powerless to stop it. She slept holding the toddlers hand, a small gesture meant to keep them tethered.

During the day she hardly spoke to the man behind the wheel despite his many attempts. He was doing everything he could to keep things light. Singing off key with the radio; the golden oldies. Pointing out to Eve every farm animal spotted grazing along the highway. Stopping at empty rest stops so that they could stretch their legs and then chasing Eve around the small grassy patches. He was trying to make things better then they seemed which was more than a morose Grace could say about herself.

And then as the sun started to set on their third day and it looked like they would spent yet another night in the car, she spoke to him directly.

"We can't go on like this," Her voice sounded hoarse from disuse. "Eve needs a bath and to sleep in proper bed. So do I."

He rasped his knuckles over his unshaven jaw. She could see the muscle flex near his ear. He knew she was right.

"I know a place. It's not far," He told her, adding, "It will be safe."

And so he switched directions again and after an hour and half they were turning down a long and narrow driveway. He parked in front of a large farm house, complete with wrap around porch and laundry hung out on the line. The lights were on and toys littered the yard. Grace's heart ached for home.

A thin young woman looking to be in her early twenties stepped out on the porch as soon as the cars headlights swept across the yard. She was dressed in a black lace dress, its tight bodice and low collar revealing just enough pale breast to be considered indecent. Her eyes were lined in thick kohl liner and she hid behind a fall of reddish brown hair. But despite her old world witchy appearance, there was an innocence to her face and a sadness in her eyes as she fretted at the top of the stairs waiting for them.

"Where have you been?" She asked in heavily accented English. "When you didn't call in I worried."

Steve carried Eve on his hip, her face buried in his neck. Adjusting the child's weight, he succumbed to the young woman's anxious embrace.

"I'm sorry, kid. Something came up," He said with a note of brotherly affection.

"Tony found you," The woman said with a knowing nod, then looked to Grace who stood just behind Steve's shoulder. "This must be the woman Sam talked about. And her daughter?"

His cheek twitched in the wannest of smiles. "Wanda, meet Grace and Eve Holland. Wanda Maximoff."

Wanda took Grace's hand between both of hers and held it there for a moment. Finally, the younger woman smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Grace Holland."

"Nice to meet you too," Grace replied. Taking back her hand, she flexed it discreetly at her side.

Introductions over, Steve resumed control, "Whose all here?"

"Right now, just me. And Laura and the kids of course," She said this last part lightly, as though it were a given.

"Better bring Clint and Sam in," Mounting the porch steps, he said this in his Captain America voice. There was no question who was in charge.

Grace was hesitant. He turned back to her, her child half asleep in his arms.

"Grace?"

With a resigned sigh, she followed.

*****

Grace was sorting through clothes. In the haste of their escape she had grabbed at will and now she was left with an assortment of mismatched clothes. There was no rhyme or reason to it and it frustrated her very tired and certainly type A mind. 

Laura Barton hadn't seemed in the least bit surprised by the unexpected guests and had merely asked after what they would need. Within five minutes Grace was handed fresh towels and soaps and was directed to the guest bedroom and bath. She had been able to give Eve a proper scrubbing albeit without her favorite bath frog, and had settled her in for the night with the Barton kids. A little rough and tumble but none the less sweet, they had been accepting of the intrusion in to their home.

Now clean herself, Grace's head was still a mess. A decent shower could not do away with the torrent of thoughts running through her head. Like a broken faucet, she couldn't turn off the steady pour and just when she thought she couldn't possibly think anymore, a new fresh wave of thoughts washed over her. She was burning through all her sick time at work and then she remembered that she would probably never return to work and it made her feel ill. She suddenly desperately missed the job she hated. But the chances were that the house, the town, all of it, was completely lost to her. She was now tied to one of the most wanted men on the planet. She couldn't just simply go home.

To make matters worse she had left behind the brand new shoes that she had only just bought for Eve. The pink sparkly ones with the light up rhinestones in the toes. They had cost almost forty dollars at the store in the mall but Eve had loved them. Now she was stuck in the beat up play shoes that she had been wearing and were getting too tight. 

In a huff Grace threw a ball of socks in to the duffle bag.

"You doing okay?" Steve asked from the doorway of the bathroom. Showered and shaved, his blonde hair was spiked with water. He had changed in to fresh jeans and a crisp white shirt, a towel slung over his shoulders.

She couldn't stand to look at him. "I forgot Eve's shoes."

"We'll get her new shoes."

"It was the first pair she ever picked out herself. I hadn't even let her wear them out yet."

"She can pick out a new pair," He made it sound so simple.

"If I had let her wear them she would have had them on when we picked her up. She'd have them now but instead they're sitting in her closet at home, useless," Her voice cracked on the word home.

He was behind her, his hands on her trembling shoulders. Turning her around she sobbed in his chest, her tears soaking in to his shirt. He petted her still damp hair which smelled of the green apple shampoo Wanda was so fond of. It smelled wrong on her.

"Hey now," He soothed, his lips against her crowns. "It's going to be okay. I promise, everything is going to be okay."

Sniffling, she wiped her bloodshot eyes with the heels of her palms. "What did Wanda mean about you not calling in?"

He was holding her still, but pulled back enough to get a better look at her face. "What do you mean?"

"When we got here she said she worried when you didn't call in," Blinking back the flow of tears, she looked up at him. "I thought you hadn't heard from anyone."

For all of his strengths, lying had never been one of them. The tips of his ears turned pink and he rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck.

"I, um - I got the call the day before we left. I was about to call back when Tony showed up at the hospital."

"What?" Her voice was low, barely a whisper as she looked up at him wide eyed. Her face changed, fluctuating through her mix of emotions: surprise, disbelief, anger. "You... you got the call and you didn't say anything?"

"I'm sorry, Grace."

"You're sorry!" She raged. His body was hard and unyielding as she hit him in the chest. It was like punching granite. "You shouldn't even have been there! As soon as you got the call you were supposed to leave!"

"Grace, please," He started, and then when she reared back again. "Don't, please, you'll hurt yourself."

She wasn't of the mind to listen and she hit him squarely in the chest again. He flinched, but only at her wrath. 

"You weren't supposed to be there," Her teeth were gritted and there were fresh tears in her eyes. "If you had just left when you got the call then none of this -."

"Then I wouldn't have been there when Stark arrived," Steve corrected. "He would have come whether I was still there or not. At least this way I was there to protect you. I was able to get you and Eve out."

She pulled back to hit him again but this time he caught her first. Her body pressed against his, he held her hand looking as though they might start a waltz. 

"Why?" She demanded. "You didn't know he was coming. Why didn't you leave?"

"I'm not proud of it," He told her, looking at her strawberry lips. "I wasn't ready to leave. I wanted more time."

"Time for what?" She was suspicious. "What, was your vacation not long enough?"

The muscle in his cheek flexed again. It was a tell when he was tense. His Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed.

"I wanted more time with you." 

With thumb pressed in to her pads of her fingers, he forced her hand open. Turning it just so, Grace watched as if the hand wasn't her own as Steve brought it to his mouth. His breath was warm and his lips gentle as he kissed each sore knuckle, holding her gaze as he did so.

Turning her hand over he whispered in to her palm, "I wasn't ready to leave you and Eve."

Her lips fell open. His impossibly strong arm was still around her waist. She didn't fight it. There was an electrical current between them, fusing them together. He held her hand against his clean shaven cheek, nuzzling it; daring her with a look to pull away. She knew he would kiss her now, but only with permission.

There was a knock on the closed door. Steve frowned. Grace flinched.

"Yeah?"

The door opened slowly, Wanda peeking in first before entering.

"Sorry to interrupt. Clint and Sam are five minutes out," She explained.

"Thank you, Wanda."

The young woman nodded once, before ducking out.

Steve looked to Grace. She was standing at the bed again, refolding a shirt.

"Are we...?"

"Yeah," she answered quickly.

"I should..."

"Yup," She was slightly breathless. "Go ahead."

"Okay then."

She watched him go from the room, wondering if she had really intended to let him kiss her this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is almost near... if you've made it this far, please tell me what you think!
> 
> Also, just realized I posted only half this chapter. Sorry if you missed the introduction to Wanda! It's fixed now!


	12. Chapter 12

She listened to the heated conversation from the top of the stairs like a naughty child awaiting punishment from her parents. With the way the men were talking about they had her feeling like a child too; one that was incapable of making decisions for herself. She hated it and she hated them for making her so small. 

They had been going at it for ten minutes, back and forth, round and round; Sam annoyed, Steve defensive, and Barton occasionally offering his droll nonpartisan commentary. Wanda's voice interjected now and then, begging them to stop for fear of waking the children and for a moment or two things would quiet and Grace would struggle to make out their words, but inevitably they would pick up again.

"I don't understand how the hell you let this happen," Came Sam's voice, tight with annoyance.

"It was an accident," Was the Captain's sharp reply.

"An accident? Jesus Steve, how hard is it for you to keep a low profile?"

"No one feels worse about this than I do, Sam."

"I don't get it! You knew! You knew Stark was going to be on full alert!"

"Please, we're not going to get anywhere like this."

Then Clint's voice, "Wanda's right."

There was a moment of tense silence, broken by Steve's pious proclamation, "I'm going to make it right."

"Right," Sam scoffed. Even without seeing him, Grace knew the puckered look of doubt on Sam's face.

"I have to try, at least, Sam."' 

"Don't you think you've done enough already, Captain?" There was an sharp bite to his words that caused even Grace to wince. "Look, I've had your back from day one but now you've got Grace wrapped up in this. It's gone too far. I made a promise long before I even met you to look out for her and right now that means more than this crusade of righteousness you're on."

She couldn't take it anymore. She was done standing idly by while they went around in circles. She rushed headlong down the stairs, stopping short when she reached the bottom.

"Steve's not the one who brought me in to this."

All eyes were on her and a nervous pit formed on her stomach. There was a television on in the corner, the volume muted, and the men stood facing off in the center of the room while Wanda sat with her feet tucked up underneath her in an easy chair. Clint was in full tactical gear and Sam was in his flight suit. Grace wondered where they had been and how they had gotten back so quickly. Judging by the rings left around his eyes by his goggles, Sam had flown.

"Grace, sweetheart, I'm sorry," Sam apologized, taking a step towards her with his hand out. "I'm sorry I dragged you in to this mess. I never meant for it to go down like this."

"I know you didn't," She told him. "But neither did Steve. This isn't his fault, Sam. I'm the one who took him to the hospital."

The Captain was standing nearest the fireplace with his arms folded across his chest and his penetrating stare focused on her. She wished he would stop looking at her that way; it made her weak kneed. 

"No one here is blaming you, Grace," He spoke directly to her.

"That's just it; you're all acting like I didn't have a part to play in what happened, but I did. I'm the one who missed the BB in the first place and I'm the one who dropped it for the custodian to find; If it wasn't for me you would have never gotten sick to begin with and Stark wouldn't have been able to trace you back to the hospital."

Steve shook his head, his lips pursed. "You don't have to do that. None of this is your fault."

"It's okay," Her voice hardly wavered. She matched his stare, saying with a look what her lips couldn't; that she was on his side. 

She turned her attention to Sam. "I forgive you for using Riley against me."

Sam looked away in shame. Barton's eyes narrowed and the winged airman and Steve leveled him with a hard look. Apparently they weren't privy to the tactics he had employed against her.

"Grace, I'm sorry for that."

"It's okay, Sam. Really. I understand now. I know why you did it."

For a moment no one said anything. Laura Barton was standing in the entryway to the kitchen wringing a dish towel in her hands. She was a calm woman with seemingly infinite patience; it was evident in the unworried way in which she had watched the superheroes argue. But suddenly her face changed, slowly shifting from one of passive acceptance to disbelief, and then horror.

Wanda's hand flew to her mouth to stifle her cry. On the television a news bulletin flashed across the screen and then a live image. Grace's first thought was some sort of catastrophic factory failure as they watched thick black smoke billow as though from a smoke stack across a darkened sky. It took her disbelieving mind a full moment before it recognized a city high rise. Someone, she didn't know who, turned up the volume. A somber reporter reading from a teleprompter about an active terrorist attack taking place is Paris, the death toll estimated to be in the hundreds.

"We should go," The Captain announced.

"If we did that we might as well hand ourselves over to Stark on a silver platter," The frustration was clear in Clint's voice and he edged himself closer to his wife.

"Not for something like this. I know Tony. He would let us help," Steve defended.

"Maybe. But do you really trust him not to take us all down when it was done?" Sam challenged. 

The Captain was unwavering. "If we can help, we should."

At some point Grace had moved closer to the Captain . She didn't remember doing so, but now she found herself right beside him, her hand on his bicep. He reached across and placed his hand over hers, giving it a squeeze.

"Maybe Steve is right and Tony would allow it for something like this," Wanda offered.

"Is that a chance we really want to take? You're talking about a guy who went through the trouble to create an anti-serum for the Cap."

"That's different," Steve was frowning. "That was personal. This isn't."

"We can't even know if our help is wanted anymore," Sam said, shaking his head in disapproval. "For all we know we could show up and they boo us."

Barton scoffed, "Really? People are dying and you're afraid of getting boo'd?"

"You know what I mean, Hawkeye."

"The accords weren't about not wanting our help," The Captain said pointedly. "The world still needs heroes."

"As long as they can be controlled, right?" Sam snapped. No one disagreed with him.

"The world still needs heroes though," Steve said it so softly that it was more himself than anyone else, but Grace was still close enough to hear.

"But why does it have to be you?"

He looked down on her, his jaw tight, his face grim. There was something in his eyes, something like defeat. Instead of acknowledging what Her question he pulled away and headed towards the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally meant to go on but I decided to make what happens next it's own chapter. Please, please, please keep reading! The end is very near (4-5 chapters tops). I'm needy for validation! Is it too serious? Too slow? Not funny enough??
> 
> Also, I don't like Sam being the dick but someone had to be the devil's advocate.


	13. Chapter 13

"Steve! Steve wait!" 

She was practically running trying to catch up with his long strides. He walked through the Barton's yard as though on a mere stroll but there was conviction in his face.

It was starting to rain, a warm, passing, mid summer storm. In the distance there was a rumble of thunder. For a gut wrenching second, Steve thought of Thor. He wondered where the Asgardian was now. What words of sage wisdom he might give.

"Go back inside, Grace."

"Where are you going?"

He didn't answer.

"Please stop," She was winded as she continued after him. "I can't... I haven't done PT in years."

He pivoted on his heel and she nearly slammed in to his chest. Grabbing her quickly by the elbow, he prevented her from toppling backwards.

"Thank you," She huffed. Sweeping her hair hurriedly out of her face, she took a breath. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know," He answered sharply. It was the hard truth. He hadn't known where he was going for months now. Not since Serbia. Not since Bucky went back in the freeze. Longer than that even. He let go of her arm.

He was walking off again, then turned around, pacing. He was buzzing with nervous energy. It was the first time she had seen him truly upset.

"Talk to me, please. What's wrong?" She asked and immediately regretted how whiney it sounded. He was upset. He had every right to be. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Paris. I'm sorry about Stark."

His lips were tight and hard ridges parenthesized his mouth. For once he didn't look like a boy but instead a deeply troubled man. A man with the weight of the world settled on his impossibly broad shoulders. He ran his hand over his face.

"What do you want, Steve?" She questioned softly.

"I want to be allowed to do my damn job."

"You want to save the world," It wasn't a question.

"Yes!" He cried.

"What if you can't?" She took a chance, "What if it's just not possible? I don't understand why it all has to come back to you."

Even in the twilight she could see the muscle in his jaw flex. "It's my job."

"A job shouldn't define you."

"This is who I am. This is who I've always been. It's why they made me."

Her dark brows came together in a worried groove. "You mean Captain America. It's why they made Captain America."

He stopped his pacing. His shirt was plastered now to his hard body, clinging to the taunt ridges of his stomach. His expression was dark. "I am Captain America."

Grace frowned, "I thought you were Steve Rogers."

His eyes narrowed for a second, a strange, bitter look for him. He resumed his pacing.

"Upstairs, before, you said you wanted more time," Tears threatened in her eyes but she didn't know why. Her lips trembled but he didn't see. "Time for what?"

He licked his lip, tasting the memory of her kiss. "I don't know," He answered huskily. "It seems I don't know much of anything anymore."

"You're a good man. I know you only want to do the right thing. But in a world where people don't appreciate him, is it worth being Captain America if you have to sacrifice Steve Rogers in the process?"

He looked away from her, instead turning his attention to the grove of trees that lined the Barton's property swaying in the breeze, the rustling of their leaves mingling in the soft patter of rain. The trees were mature, their roots deep. They would bend but they would not break. He wished he could relate.

The cords in his neck flexed with his swallow. "I'm afraid I don't know how to be any other way."

"You said fear was temporary but regret was forever. What if you live to regret it?" Her voice was shrill with desperation.

"Having regrets is my fear! What happens if I don't show up and people get hurt? What if those people die when I could have prevented it? I live with it every day!"

Rain clung to her lashes the way water in the shower was want to do. She wiped it away with her tears. "It's too much, Steve! You can't save everyone! It's too much for one man, surely you can see that."

He scowled, a foreign expression on his handsome face. 

"Then I die trying."

He was resolute. Once his mind was made up, there was no changing it. She let out a pained sob.

When he spoke next his voice lacked the warmth she had grown familiar to, "Clint knows of a safe house in Mexico. It's supposed to nice and there's a yard for Eve."

Her eyes were wide again, panicked. "What are you saying?"

"That you'll be safe there. You can get a fresh start, far away from all of this mess."

"And you?" She questioned.

Not having an answer that she would want to hear, he stayed quiet.

She chewed her lip, biting back the pain she hadn't expected to feel, "Okay then."

Back inside the house, Grace headed up the stairs without a word to the people gathered in the front room. She needed time to herself; time to think. Steve intended to see that she got it. It was the least he could do for her.

"Everything alright?" Sam asked him, suspicious that Grace hadn't even looked in their direction.

Steve stood at the bottom of the stairs, a foot on the first step and his hand on the banister. He looked up after the retreating woman, looking as though he might go after her. 

"Yeah. She's just tired. She hasn't gotten much sleep the last few days," Steve answered, then to Clint. "We're going to leave in the morning for that safe house. Can you set it up?"

Clint gave a solemn nod, "Sure thing, Cap."

"I can take the girls down," Sam offered. "Get then settled."

The Captain shook his head. "No. I need to do this myself. And when I get back I'm going to finish this thing with Tony."

"We'll be here," Barton said.

"Not this time, Clint," The Captain shook his head again. "Sam was right, this is my crusade. It's my fight. I need to finish it on my own. All I'm asking for is enough time to get Grace and Eve clear of it."

With nothing left to say, he took one last look up the stairs. As though changing his mind he headed back out the door, slamming it harder than he meant to behind him.

The silence was deafening. After everything they had been through, all the battles they had fought, now he was telling them to sit it out. No one knew how they were supposed to react.

Finally Wanda broke the silence. She looked bereft with her hand anxiously at her thin throat. "It's so sad." 

"The Cap will be fine," Barton assured her. "He knows what he's doing."

Wanda shook her head, her hair falling in her eyes. "He loves her but he refuses to admit it."

Sam looked incredulous, "What? No way."

Laura sighed from her post beside her husband, "I can't read minds but even I can see that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got darker than I expected. What can I say, I'm a glutton for angst. Stay tuned! We're almost done!


	14. Chapter 14

They looked like a perfect, happy little family. They politely declined the available seats at the counter and instead waited for a corner booth to become open. Once seated the father, a gentle man with a kind voice, wearing a baseball cap low over patriotic blue eyes, aviator sunglasses perched on the visor, sat facing the crowded restaurant. With his arm casually over the back of the booth, he leaned over the girl scribbling feverishly on the back of a paper menu, commenting like a fine art critic over her creative use of the color blue. His wife, dressed in denim shorts and a plain cotton t-shirt, had her hair pulled in a messy knot through the back of a Longhorns cap. It was assumed by the look of them that they had spent the day out of doors, enjoying the warm summer weather. 

Amid the early dinner rush, they ordered desert. A strawberry milkshake for the father, chocolate for the mother, a sundae for the child with extra sprinkles, and an order of fries to share. It was a special treat, the father said, for being brave. The little girl had fallen while playing at the park, her knee bandaged with a pink princess bandage. Usually Brenda, their waitress, disapproved of such coddling but the child was sweet and the parents didn't fuss overmuch.

They were the postcard of the middle America dream.

"E - V - E," The three year old spelled out loud. It helped having a name with only two letters.

"Very good," Grace applauded from across the table. 

Steve, who was doing a visual sweep of the restaurant, glanced at her handiwork. With an arm over her tiny shoulders, he gave a gentle squeeze. "Good job, sweetie."

Eve beamed.

"Watch this," Steve took up a comically small crayon in his large left hand. Taking his time as he formed the neat block letters beside her childish script, he added an S and a T. "Do you know what that spells?"

Eve shook her head, fair pigtails bouncing.

"S - T - E - V - E," He kept his voice low, private. "That spells my name. Steve."

Her innocent eyes went wide. "We have the same name!"

"Kind of," He chuckled, glancing up at her mother. Once she realized he was looking at her, she managed a strained sort of smile.

They were being civil for Eve's sake; acting like nothing was wrong. They didn't discuss where they were headed and there was no mention of the heated argument in the Barton's yard from two days before. There were no apologies. They kept their attentions focused on Eve and said no more than necessary to each other.

"Your names rhyme," Grace explained patiently. "Like cat and hat or ball and wall. They sound alike but they're different."

Eve looked to Steve for confirmation. He nodded his agreement while looking to the door. A growing family was walking in; father, two boys, the oldest in a grass stained little league uniform, and a heavily pregnant mother. No threat to them.

Her super spy skills lacking, Grace looked over her shoulder at the group. Out of context bewilderment; that was name for the moment of confusion that followed. When you saw someone or something familiar in an unfamiliar setting and it took a moment to place them. It this case it took her two moments. After all, it had been three years since she had seen the father of her child.

"Oh my god," She spun around, shrinking low in the booth.

They really needed to work on her subtlety. 

"What's wrong?" Steve demanded, his attention heightened. He sat straighter, his reflexes humming with anticipation of being used.

Her panicked eyes darted to her innocent daughter. Of all the diners in Texas, they had to chose the one he would show up at. They were 50 miles away from Laredo!

The pregnant mother brushed past their table, making a beeline for the bathroom, one of her sons fast at her heels. Grace winced.

Steve leaned forward, his elbows on the cracked Formica table, "What is wrong with you?"

Her words tumbled out in a whispered hiss, "The guy that just walked in is..." She glanced to Eve and then back to him, hoping he'd catch her meaning. It took him a second.

His face registered in surprise, "Would he recognize her?"

"Doubtful. He hasn't seen her since she was a few months old," The tremble in her voice was obvious. "But I'm pretty sure he'd recognize me."

The door to the women's room opened again, and the mother emerged. Grace couldn't help but stare. All the years she'd spent imagining what her husbands mistress might look like. Even swollen in pregnancy, she was delicate; feminine. She wore a light summer shift and strappy sandals, her blonde hair swept back in a bouncy ponytail. She was beautiful. 

"We need to go," Grace whispered, the familiar raw spot in her chest returning.

Steve agreed. He had done a search of the restaurant before they had been seated. He knew the exits and had taken the two seconds to disarm the alarms should they be needed. 

"There's a door off the kitchen. The alarm won't sound. If anyone asks you're looking for the bathroom. I'll take Eve and settle the check. We'll meet at the car."

Grace nodded. With one last glance over her shoulder to the man who had abandoned her, she slipped quietly from the booth.

Appearing casual, Steve wetted a napkin in a glass of water and cupped Eve's chin in his hand. He had one eye on her biological father as he attempted to clean the sticky ice cream from her face and hands. The bright eyed girl screwed her face up in protest and he mocked her, causing her to giggle. The innocent sound tugged at his heart.

He couldn't understand how a man could simply walk away without remorse.

"Okay kiddo, time to head out," He scooped her up. Her legs settled perfectly around his side, he balanced her on one arm and put his sunglasses over his eyes.

"Did you enjoy your ice cream?" He was nonchalant as he carried her through the narrow diner, side stepping when necessary. "You sure got a lot of it on your face. Were you trying to save it for later?"

Eve giggled at his cheesy attempt at a jest.

Steve stepped out of the way of a waitress carrying a tray of food over her shoulder, bumping a table with his jean clad thigh.

"I'm so sorry. Here let me get that," He bent at the waist, picking up a dropped spoon. When he righted he was looking directly in to the face of Eve's father. It had been by design. He borrowed the modern phrase, "My bad."

"No worries," Shane replied coolly.

He didn't know what he expected from the man who could leave his family - some sort of villain with an oiled mustache perhaps. Instead he found a guy with thinning hair and the makings of a beer gut. His face was round, his jaw unshaven, and he smelled of cigarettes. Steve tried to find any trace of him in the child on his hip but failed. Besides her blonde hair and blue eyes, Eve looked like her mother. For some reason he was relieved and he hugged the girl closer.

"Little League, huh?" Steve commented lightly, indicating to the oldest boys uniform. 

It occurred to him that the boy had a few years on Eve at least and wondered at what point Grace had first learned of her husbands infidelities. Of course it was possible that the boy wasn't his, but judging the two side by side, it was doubtful.

"Yup," Shane answered proudly, clapping a hand on his sons shoulder. "Star hitter. Team finished first in their division in today's tournament."

"Congratulations," Steve said to the boy. "Your parents must be very proud."

"Damn right we are," Shane boasted.

"That's great," Steve's cheek twitched in a dry smile. "You know, I just love that, seeing a father so proud of his son. So many deadbeats out there just up and leave their families nowadays. Never to be heard from again; leaving the burden on the mothers. It's such a shame. You ask me there's a special place in hell for fathers like that."

Shane's eyes narrowed in an icy squint, "Right."

"You're lucky, son," Steve directed to the boy. "A lot of kids don't have a father to come to their baseball games. Their dads don't care about them or what they have going on in their lives. They have to go through life wondering why their daddy wasn't man enough to stick around."

"Okay, that's enough!" Shane heaved himself out of the booth so that he was standing toe to toe with the man holding his forgotten daughter. "I don't know what your problem is, man -."

"It's okay though," Steve leaned in. He had a few inches on the rounder man, not to mention the marked strength and agility. The captains next words were just for him. "He's not missed. Some other man will come along. A better man, an appreciative man, a real man. He won't take for granted what some other asshole was able to walk away from."

He walked out with cool, confident strides, Eve proud on his waist.

"Don't ever use that word," He instructed.

The girl looked at him inquisitively, "What word?"

He gave her a wink, "Exactly."

Eve squeezed both eyes shut then popped them open again with a toothy grin, her best imitation. With a deep chuckle, he kissed her cheek.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is actual in facts smut in this chapter. Nothing hardcore, but definite fluffy smut. Enjoy!

The safe house was less of a house and more of a shack. Safe was also a relative term. Set back from the road behind a cover of ash, they had had to walk in a half of a mile, Eve sitting atop Steve's shoulders. There were steps missing leading up to the porch and the roof sagged. There was a large questionable stain on the hardwood in the living room and after a preliminary sweep Steve deemed the upstairs off limits. Grace didn't question why. They also didn't have electricity. No amount of love could ever make the dilapidated shack inhabitable again but they found fresh sheets, a box of beeswax candles, a book of matches, and some bottled water in a closet under the stairs. Someone, Grace didn't ask who, had been expecting them.

"It's just for the night," Steve assured the girls.

Off the living room they found a room with a double bed. The furnishings were sparse but the mattress didn't appear overly dirty. Grace made up the bed, taking her time to smooth the soft cotton sheets.

"Mama, I don't like it here," Eve worried her little brow.

"I know, baby, but it's just for tonight. I'm here and Steve is just in the next room. We're safe. Nothing bad can happen."

Grace folded herself around the warm little body, wrapping the blankets around them both. Eve snuggled in to her breast and memory of her infancy washed over the mother, of a time not long after her husbands abandonment. Overwhelmed and on her own, she had given up hope of ever developing a normal bedtime routine. Most nights too exhausted to care, she would simply lay down with the infant still in her arms. Then she would wake up in the middle of the night, panicked that in her sleep she had somehow dropped the baby on the floor. But she was always right there, sleeping peacefully and smelling of milk, there at her mother's breast. 

"When are we going home?" Her baby asked.

Grace kissed her downy crown. "Soon, my love. Soon. Now rest your eyes."

Steve retreated silently in to the shadows. 

In the main room there was a musty couch covered in a painters sheet and an old box television on a wooden crate, useless given the lack of power. A bay window looked out in the direction they had come in from, a candle burning low on the window's seal, casting long shadows across the wall.

They could have spent the night in the car again. Perhaps in hindsight, they should have. But he had wanted them to have this. Just one last night under the same roof, no matter how rotted it might have been.

Standing at the window with his arms folded across his chest, he gave a resigned sigh. So this was it. This was were he would spend the last moments of his life as he knew it. A decrepit old shack in the middle of nowhere with an innocent mother and child asleep in the next room. The fact that he could live with it made him slightly queazy. 

Like any good soldier on a mission, he went over the plan in his head once more.

The floorboards creaked beneath Grace's bare feet. Her silhouette danced across the wall.

"Eve is out like a light."

"Good," He told her.

He wouldn't look at her. He wasn't surprised when she came to him, timid, with her hands clasped in front of her. She arranged herself gingerly on the windows ledge, careful of the candle and splintered wood.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"No," His answer was terse, almost formal.

"Are you sure?"

She couldn't be certain, but she thought she detected a slight hesitation. "Yes."

"You've been quiet all night."

He couldn't tell her that he hadn't been able to get her ex husband off his mind. Specifically, the thought of her being with him. Steve had far more important things to concern himself with right now, but like an ear worm burrowed deep in his brain, he couldn't shake the mental image of them together. He hadn't realized how much it mattered to him until he had a face to put to her husbands name. Now he knew what a man she might be with looked like and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop picturing the jerk panting and sweating on top of her. Grace, who was so gentle and nurturing, and that dumb oaf...

His rich tenor voice came out sounding flat. "What do you want me to say?"

She decided to let him have that one. Tucking her hair neatly behind her ear, she looked down at the floor.

"We're near the Mexican border," She commented.

When he didn't answer she chanced a look up at him. He was watching out the window above her head. His eyes were dark, his face unreadable by the candlelights glow.

"I heard what you said the other night," Her voice was as soft as he knew her touch to be. "About coming back and finishing things with the Iron Man. Do you really plan to fight him on your own?"

Again, he didn't acknowledge that she had spoken let alone had asked him a question.

"Don't," She whispered when he didn't say anything. "Please, don't do it."

He looked slowly down at her, hardly trusting himself or his feelings at the moment. There were tears glistening in her eyes.

"I have to finish what I started."

"No, you don't! Just... just stay with us. In Mexico," She hated how needy she sounded, "We can all have a fresh start. You, me, Eve. Together.".

He shook his head, returning his attention to the dust smeared window. She couldn't know how deep her words cut. 

"You don't know what you're saying."

She got up from the window seal so that she stood trembling and vulnerable before him; close enough to touch but with a lifetime between them. 

"I'm saying..." Her eyes dropped again to the floor and she lowered her voice. "I'm saying I don't want you to go. I don't want you to leave us. I... I'm tired of being left behind."

And she meant it too. She wanted him to stay. Maybe it had snuck up on her or maybe a part of her had known all along, but she knew now how deep her feelings truly were for the Captain. She wanted them to be a family.

Steve shut his eyes against her pain, "Grace..."

"Please," She did not want to have to beg. "I can't... First Riley and then Shane. I can't go through it again."

"I am sorry about your brother, truly, and as far as your ex, you deserve so much better than that jerk. You and Eve both do."

She chewed her lip, studying the space between her her bare toes and his boots, "Then stay."

His foot shuffled a fraction of an inch, closing the divide. Her heart started to race as he began to reach for her. He forced himself to pull back.

"You don't know what you're asking."

"I'm asking you to kiss me, damn it," Her voice breathy as she laced her fingers with his.  
"This time when we're both expecting it."

There was a moment of hesitation and in that moment everything was clear. A dam inside of him burst, spilling forth a torrent of emotions. Namely, how much he loved her. With every cell in his body, every fiber of his being, he loved her. He loved her for what she was; both sweet and stubborn. He loved her fight and determination. He loved her for the tender way she cared too. He loved her innocence when she was on the brink of sleep and the fire in her eyes when she wasn't getting her way. And yes, he would kiss her. A kiss that would contain nothing more than hope and love and all the promise that it could bring. A kiss that would lead to more. It would be raw and passionate and completely unfiltered. And he knew there would be consequences; there would be regret, but when he looked in to her eyes and saw his own feelings reflected back to him, he found that for once he didn't care. 

His fingers slid free from hers and traveled up her arms to her face. Palming her warm cheeks in his capable hands, he brushed a callused thumb over her chapped lip. He was going to savor this. Every touch, every sensation, every dreamy expression in those kelly green eyes. He would commit each and every detail to memory, his to keep forever.

"I love you, Grace," He said without holding back.

She raised her hand to his, holding it against her cheek. Her eyes closed, "I love you too."

There was no thinking about it. Grace rose up on her toes and Steve brought his mouth down to hers. With one arm around her waist he pulled her tight against him, her round curves fitting to his hard lines. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers in the trim hairs at his nape. 

The sweet taste of her kiss fueling him, with his free hand the Captain grabbed her roughly by the thigh, bringing it up to his waist. He felt the shutter of her surprised gasp, thought to stop, but then she opened for him. Her lips parting, she welcomed him when he pressed her back in to the wall with her legs wrapped around him.

He had never forced himself on a girl, that was never his style, but Grace wasn't some USO girl either. He broke away, just for a moment, his brow against hers.

"Are you sure? I need you to be sure."

She was trembling. Her lips tingling, she clamped down as she swallowed. "Uh-huh."

With his thigh wedged beneath her, pinning her in place, Steve grabbed for the painters tarp covering the couch. Dropping it to floor it made a rough little nest but it was better than nothing and neither one cared as they lost themselves again in a kiss. Trusting implicitly that he wouldn't drop her, Grace was already working the buttons of his shirt when he lowered her to the floor.

The stiff canvas was rough against her bare calves as she scooted back, making room for him on their makeshift bed. Quickly, before she could lose her nerve, she peeled off her shirt, her creamy skin instantly prickling with goosebumps. Her bra was nothing special, basic beige and from Walmart, it was the least sexy thing she owned but the Captain paid no mind to what she wore. He only saw her and he knelt before her, a humbled servant. 

Laying her back, he watched her face while he slid her shorts over her hips. He smiled when she closed her eyes, letting out a soft sigh. She was hot and her cotton panties were wet when he ran his hand up her inner thigh. He nuzzled her cheek with his nose, kissed the crook of her neck. 

"You're beautiful," His breath tickled her ear.

She couldn't help but giggle. He actually looked wounded. She covered her mouth with her hand and tried to pull a straight face but her eyes were still dancing. "I'm sorry. It's just.... it's been a while."

He gave her that boyish smirk, the one that made her stomach feel like mush. If she thought it had been a while for her, she should try a 70 year dry spell.

"It's okay," He murmured, kissing her neck again.

Her eyes went wide and a gasp tore at her throat. With a deft hand, he had pushed her panties to the side, a skilled finger probing ever so gently. She let out a shuttering breath and drew in another one. He was looking at her again, making her feel self conscious, and she bit her lip.

"Don't do that," He tisked.

With one hand still at her core, he shifted his other arm under her neck, drawing her closer so that she were cradled against him. He was on his side, a jean dressed knee raised and with his forearm he pulled her open thigh against his bare stomach. She let out a whimper.

"Steve," His name spilled from her lips, thin and reedy. She sounded a little scared as she begged, "Please."

"Shhh," He hushed, brushing his lips over her flushed cheek, "I want to watch you."

Her brow furrowed in the candlelight and she rolled her lips. He could hear her heart as fast as a hummingbird hammering in her chest, and he slid his patient finger deep inside of her. Grace arched, her lips parting in a stunned o but no sound came. The finger crooked just right, once and then again, and again, quicker, so that on every flex she bucked just slightly. Her breath was coming quicker and Steve watched with a deep satisfaction as she balled the tarp in her fists, her stomach tensing. When she finally broke he caught her cry with in his mouth, tasting her pleasure. He was obliged to have been the one to give it to her and thankful to have been able to bear witness.

She was panting now. Her eyes were sparkling and her skin glistened in a thin dew. She looked quite seriously up at him as he removed his slick hand from her. She bit her lip again and swallowed. He kissed her again.

She pushed him, hard. He humored her, allowing her to shove him on to his back. Clamoring on top of him, she pushed his jeans down his hips while her legs straddled his taunt stomach. He held to her hips, appreciating the view.

Rather than wriggle out of them Grace remained in her panties, employing the same method he had of pushing them to the wayside before sliding down his shaft. It was so much more than she expected and not at all what she was used to and she sat stark still for a minute growing used to the feel of him inside of her. Steve thought his heart might possibly explode. Then she moved, rocking forward slowly and then back, and he was damn sure it would.

His hand snaked up to her hair, bringing her down to his mouth so that her breast pressed against his chest. With each trust he deepened himself in to her, nudging her closer and closer. When he felt himself growing close he switched positions, sitting up so that she sat facing him on his lap. She mewled in to his neck, burying her mouth there, crying out his name as the super soldier moved her up and down again, pushing her to the brink. When he felt her begin to flutter around him he couldn't take it anymore and let himself go.

Grace was, for all intents and purposes, a complete mess. Her entire body shook as he rolled her slowly to the ground. She could not get her legs to work. Or her arms. Or anything for that matter. Careful not to disturb her overmuch, Steve slid her ruined underwear off and discarded them to the corner of their little nest. He then wrapped her in his shirt, still warm and smelling of him. Her eyes were heavy, and he kissed her brow.

"I love you, Grace," He spoke with his lips against her temple. "I really mean that."

"I love you too," She whispered.

Righting his jeans, he scooped her up in his arms. She fit so easily against his chest, her ankles crossed neatly as her legs dangled over his arm. She burrowed her face in to his neck.

He carried her to the bedroom where Eve slept in the brass bed. Grace murmured something he couldn't understand as he lay her beside the sleeping child.

"Shhh," He soothed. "Don't wake Evie."

Grace looked at him with a sleepy sort of goofy grin on her face. "Stay? There's room."

When he shook his head there was a deep sadness to his eyes. He stooped beside the bed, bringing his face to hers.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I really am."

Grace's brow wrinkled in confusion. She didn't understand. Sorry for what? And then his hand moved, unnerving in its quickness. He pulled her hand above her head where she heard the clink of metal and something hard and cold closed over her wrist. Then she began to panic.

"What? Steve!" She cried, struggling against her shackled wrist.

He was backing away, looking painfully apologetic. His blue eyes flicked to Eve. "I'm so sorry. I have to do this. Now try not to wake Eve."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it, I did borrow from the scene in Outlander before Jamie takes Claire to the stones. 
> 
> Please hit me with the feedback. I'm feeling rather vulnerable.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a hard one, in which Tony and Steve finally come face to face.

"This is Captain Steve Rogers for Tony Stark. I'm done fighting with you, Tony. Too many people are this now; innocent lives have been destroyed. A month ago I invaded the home of former Army Lieutenant Grace Holland, a combat nurse. There I coerced her in to helping me. I acted alone in this. Upon discovering that Ms. Holland had left Stark technology that could be linked directly to me in the hospital where she worked, I forced her and her daughter Eve from their home. They are and have been my hostages. You're a good man, Tony. I know you don't want anyone else to get hurt. I'm done. I'm willing to accept my part in things. Im ready to turn myself in, Tony, but only to you. Not Iron Man, not Ross, just you. I will go quietly. Attached you will find the coordinates of my location. At twenty-three hundred hours I will be waiting, alone and unarmed. There, I will surrender myself and give you the location of Ms. Holland and her daughter, but only to you."

His own words echoed hollow in his ears along with Grace's pitiful cries.

She had begged. Even after he handcuffed her, even after he tried to explain things. Her baby blissfully unaware in the bed beside her, she had begged him not to leave.

"You don't have to do this, Steve. Please! Don't go."

But he had to. No matter how bad it hurt. No matter how much he didn't want to. He had to go. He had to make things right. For the team. For her. For Eve. 

One day she would understand.... he hoped.

He stood on the shoulder of the road, waiting. For what he wasn't exactly sure, but he knew Tony wouldn't let him down. The genius, playboy, philanthropist, billionaire was a great many things, including a narcissist, but part of that narcissism was fueled by needing to feel needed. As long as Tony thought a helpless nurse and her innocent child were dependent on him for rescue, he would not disappoint. 

All that was left to do was wait...

*****

He left. She hadn't honestly thought him capable. Even after he handcuffed her to the bed. But then he did it. He told her he loved her and then he left.

Maybe she was wrong before; maybe it was her.

"This is the only way. This is how you and Eve get your life back. I'm sorry, Grace, for everything. I'm sorry you had to get caught up in this."

She shifted her weight, the cuffs ratcheting over the bedpost. Her hand was going numb. Steve had told her someone would be along soon to release her. She had no idea where the key was. All she could do was wait.

She wondered what would happen if she told the truth. If she told whoever was coming that she was culpable. That she wasn't just some innocent victim. This hadn't just happened to her; she had played and active roll. She had known what she was doing. She might not have always liked it, but she knew.

They would take Evie. 

God, why did he have to leave?

Hearing a noise, Grace straightened in the bed. Footsteps on the porch. How long had it been? Surely not long enough. Could it be Steve coming back having changed his mind? Her heart quickened in her chest. She heard the front door tried and held her breath, not knowing what was to come.

A candle still burned beside the bed and the one in the living room. The golden light cast ghostly shadows across the wall. The footfalls were deliberately slow across the creaking floor boards. Then a shadow filled the doorway and she was confused.

Out of contest bewilderment was a bitch.

*****

Steve was annoyed though he had no reason to be. Leave it to Tony Stark to show up to a rescue in the most impractical of cars. Genius, right. Where on earth was he supposed to put a car seat in the little two seater sportster?

But he had to hand it to him, he was on time and alone with no sign of the Iron Man suit. Steve wasn't dumb, he knew a suit was always on hand, but for now Tony was dressed in a slim fitting suit. Not exactly appropriate for their middle of nowhere rendezvous, but somehow Tony made it work.

"Captain," His acknowledgement was clipped and he stepped in front of the low beams of the car. He was vigilant at the same time as being aloof and Steve knew he was checking for threat of ambush.

The Captain nodded, "Tony."

"So where are they?"

"First I need your word that you'll take care of them," Steve said, his arms folded in an unthreatening manner across his chest.

"Take care of them? Take care of them, how? You mean they way you took care of your friend, Bucky? Or the way you took care of me in Serbia?"

The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose as Tony stared him down.

"They're innocent, Tony."

"You know I watched the surveillance from that hospital. Terrible tech, it was a bitch to clean up the image, but your little friend nurse Holland sure didn't look all that coerced. In fact she appeared to be acting of her own free will. And as it turns out, she's got ties to Sam Wilson. You remember Sam, don't you? You broke him out of RAFT prison. So explain that one too me."

"I knew she was alone and had medical training," The Captain answered coolly.

Tony adjusted his cuff link. "Right."

"No one else needs to be hurt by this. We can end it here and now."

"Why now?"

"I'm done fighting with you."

"Because you know I'm right or because you know you can't win?"

The muscle in Steve's jaw flexed. "The world still needs heroes, Tony, whether it's me or it's Iron Man."

The billionaire gave a snide sort of snort, "Right."

There was a noise, distant and shrill. Tony couldn't hear it, not without the suit and Friday's help, but Steve's ear turned to it.

"What are you doing?" Tony demanded to know.

"Be quiet," The Captain hissed.

There it was again. He turned, listening. Then he moved, quickly, until he couldn't. The Captain dropped hard to his knees, his arms spread wide. His head arched back, his mouth soundlessly open as electricity shot through him and unintentional tears welled in the corners of his eyes.

Damn it, Tony.

*****

"What do we have here?"

His voice was chillingly cold. Far colder than she remembered. Grace stiffened on the bed.

"Shane," She swallowed. "What are you doing here?"

His eyes flicked like a snakes from her to Eve and then back again where they lingered on her bare thighs. She was suddenly painfully aware of her state of undress. Steve's shirt was loose on her and only half buttoned. With her one free hand she tugged at the hem. She felt vulnerable and exposed.

"I could ask you the same question."

He wasn't alone. There was someone else in the house, beyond where she could see given the poor light. She could hear them moving in the other room, heard doors being opened and shut again. Her mind was reeling.

"So," Shane started, his thick body blocking the door. He looked as though he hadn't a care in the world. "Funny thing the other day. I'm watching the ten o'clock news and whose picture should I see but that of my ex-wife, wanted for questioning in connection to Captain America."

"Shane..."

"Let me finish," He cut her off sharply. With a raised hand, he took a step towards the bed. Grace clamped her mouth shut.

He continued. "I actually didn't believe it at first, you know. I mean, you connected with some vigilante do-gooder? You were always about law and order, and doing the right thing. You wouldn't be dumb enough to get caught up with a man on the run."

Grace swallowed hard. There was a hollow pit in her stomach. She wanted to disappear inside of it.

"No, I didn't believe it. Until today some asshole comes up to me with her," He nodded towards the child still blissfully unaware. His child. "Raving about kids and their fathers, like the son of a bitch thinks he knows something. I'm thinking, who the fuck is this asshole acting like he's got shit to say to me. So I follow him out to the parking lot thinking I'm about to say some shit myself and who do I see him get in to the car with, but you. And that's when it hit me, you really are that dumb."

"Shane please," She whimpered, her cuffs rattling against the bedpost as she tried to sit herself upright. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, his intentions weren't good. "You should go, really. You shouldn't be here."

Rubbing at the back of his head, Shane snickered. "You know there's a reward for him?"

"He's not here," Grace blurted. "He left already."

Shane smirked. "I know. I watched him leave. After his little scene at the diner and then seeing you, I thought to follow you two, see where you went. When you pulled off the road it wasn't too hard to figure out. The locals talk about this place, how it's haunted," His cold eyes sparked like a gleeful child. 

"There's no other place around for miles," His brows wagging. "Perfect opportunity."

"He's gone, Shane," Her voice cracked. "He's not coming back."

"Yeah? So why are you handcuffed to the bed, then?"

Grace sucked in a breath, the air hissing through her teeth. 

Shane watched her for a second, his head cocked to the side like he found humor in her predicament. She shifted uncomfortably, the hem of the shirt riding up her thigh before she could yank it down again. Looking like a cat about to play with his prey, he smirked.

"Why don't we see just how far good old Captain Rogers went?"

Looking to her daughter, Grace opened her mouth and screamed.

*****

He couldn't catch his breath. The initial shock over, he was on all fours, gasping, fighting to regain his feet.

Damn it, asthma.

He could feel the anti-serum taking over his system; his body starting to fail him. Already his senses were dimming, like a light switch was being turned off. He couldn't hear as well; couldn't see in the dark. 

"Tony," Steve croaked. "Tony, help..."

"What the hell, Steve?" Tony snapped. "What happened to your word? Your honor! You said you wouldn't -."

"Help... Grace...." He wheezed. "Something... something is wrong. They're... in danger..."

Tony stood over him looking dubious. "You said you would go quietly."

Steve struggled to his unsteady feet, determination in his blue eyes. If there was one strength he had even without the super soldier serum, it was his will to fight. 

"Help. Me. Save. Them," Each word was punctuated by a ragged breath as he teetered on rubber legs. "And I will."

Tony squinted his eyes at him. He had trusted him before. The question was, should he trust Steve Rogers now?

"Where?"

*****

Eve's little brow wrinkled and her eyes warily opened. She looked perturbed, more like annoyed, and confused as to why on earth her slumber would be disturbed. Upon seeing the awareness in the little ones eyes, Grace wanted to cry, and instead let out another strangled scream.

"Mama?" Eve questioned as she tried to make sense of things. Then, "Mama!" As the strange man grabbed at her mother's flailing foot. 

"Nooool!" Grace screamed, the single syllable stretching and breaking. She kicked, hard, twisting her body. Her heel caught him in the breastplate.

"Bitch," Shane hissed. He was glaring at her through squinted eyes. 

Eve buried her tiny body in to her mother's. Grace tried to fold herself around the little being, enveloping her the best she could in a pocket of safety.

"Jack, come get the girl," Shane shouted over his shoulder.

"No! No!" Grace cried, holding tight to the child as a second body filled the room. "You stay away from her! Stay away!"

There was no pain in the world like having her baby torn from her breast. Eve screamed, wriggling in this new mans arms as she tried to return to her Mama. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks as she pushed against him, fighting with all her little might. Grace strained against her shackled wrist, reaching out desperately.

"Don't hurt her!" She cried. "She's your daughter! Shane! Please, she's your child!"

He shrugged with that evil smirk, "Not my child."

Eve's cries cut through the air, tearing at her mother's heart. For the first time Grace knew she was capable of murder.

He fell on her, his weight crushing as she clawed and kicked. As children her and Riley had wrestled on the regular but then she had had use of both her arms. Her mind failed her, any self defense training she had ever had going out the window. She twisted her body beneath him, trying to buck away from his groping fingers. When he slapped her, her teeth clicked and there was a bright flash of light. She was silent for a mere second and then screamed in his face again. 

Amidst their struggle neither noticed when another man entered the room. Struggling to breathe and slightly unsure on his feet, he grabbed Shane by the collar, throwing him to the floor.

"Get off... of her," Steve snarled, his chest heaving. His face was flushed with exertion beneath a thin sheen of sweat. Grace's panicked brain flashed to him puking on the floor. He looked ill.

Shane hunched on the floor, looking slightly awed. Slowly he rose to his feet.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Captain Amer-."

"Tony, get the girl," Steve ordered somewhat breathlessly over his shoulder. 

"On it," Came an amplified voice from the other room.

Steve stood baring the exit. His feverish eyes bouncing from Grace to Shane, and back again.

"Are you... okay?" He panted.

"Eve," She whimpered.

"It's going... to be okay," Steve did his best to assure her.

"You don't look so good Captain," Shane's lip furled maliciously. "You don't look good at all."

In a quick snatch, he grabbed his ex-wife by the hair, snapping her head back. Steve's face flashed in anger as Grace bit back the urge to cry.

"Is this your hero, huh Grace? This the man that thinks he's better than me? Looks like a punk to me."

Aiming for the mid section, Steve lunged. Grace let out an involuntary yelp as the two men crashed in to the wall. There was the nauseating thwump of skin to skin and grunts of exertion from both. This wasn't a fight but a back alley brawl. Steve dug in, giving it every bit he had left and Shane reciprocated in turn. One was fresh for the fight while the other worked purely off his will and determination. It was impossible to tell who had the upper hand.

"Steve!" Grace cried out when Shane landed a particularly devastating blow to the jaw. Blue eyes fell on her, distant and yet aware, and somehow he managed a weak smile.

"I've... got... this!" He heaved as he shoved Shane hard enough so that the rounder man staggered back. 

Suddenly remembering a chink in her ex's armor, an old injury from playing football in high school, Grace shouted, "Right knee!" and taking her meaning Steve redirected his focus. Shane doubled over, concentrating his blows on the Captains back while Steve went to work on his legs. The house shook with their simultaneous fall.

Desperate to be of help, Grace fought against her restraints.

*****

Iron Man barred the front door, looking every bit of imitating in shiny hot rod red. He took a step towards the man with the child, his heavy boots falling with an ominous thud.

The kid was crying. He hated when they did that. All the snot and the tears, not to mention the finger smudges they left of the suit. Tony wasn't a fan.

"Alright, just hand me the kid," He drolled.

Jack's eyes were wide, wild and panic stricken, as he darted from one dead end to the other. He was trapped. Tony didn't like the look on his face. Didn't trust it. Didn't trust the hold he had on the girl.

The floor protested ominously under the weight of Iron Man.

"Okay, you want out of here. I get that. Why don't you put the kid down and we can see what we can do."

Twitchy, Jack sputtered, "F-f-fuck you!"

"Okay, not necessary for one, and two, language?" Tony took a cautious step forward. Between the constant fidgeting and the kid, the chances of a clean shot were unlikely.

"Look, you don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Just give me the kid and we can all get out of here. You seem like a... a decently intelligent guy... you don't want to do this."

Apparently sporadic Jack wasn't as bright as Tony gave him credit for and he darted suddenly for the stairs. Eve screamed while Tony sighed within the suit. They always thought they could outrun him.

"Sir, structural integrity is compromised," Friday warned.

"Thank you," Tony activated his thrusters, floating inches above the rickety stairs as he followed in pursuit.

There was nowhere left to go and Jack knew it. He carried a flailing Eve haphazardly under his arm as he paced like a caged animal in the skeleton of an upstairs. Rooms were framed but unfinished, and loose boards littered the floor.

"Sir," Friday warned. "The chances of structural failure are at 70 percent and rising. The weight and movement of the subject are causing further damage of said structure."

Well that wasn't good.

Eve let out a scared squeal as Jack spun around, searching for a way out that didn't involve the Iron Man.

"It's not safe up here," Tony warned.

"80 percent," The AI warned.

"I don't want anyone to get hurt," Tony continued.

"87 percent."

Stuck somewhere between mounting apprehension and fear for the safety of the people inside the house, Iron Man levitated towards the the skittish man.

"Just give me the kid."

"Sir, structural collapse is imminent."

"Screw it," Tony muttered. 

With the high pitched whir of thrusters, he made the only judgement call he could at the time. Given the math, the facts as he knew them, he did the only thing that he could. 

He saved who he could.

Floating above the trees, holding tight to the squirmy child in one arm and not as tight to the dumbass Jack in the other, Iron Man watched as the house collapsed in on itself. His heart was lodged somewhere in his throat. The girl had stopped her incessant screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sister is mad at me for not having the next chapter ready yet. Honestly, I'm a little mad at myself.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which decisions and compromises are made.

Steve roused with a start, like someone had just yelled in his ear. Of course no one had. The only sound to be heard in his private room was the steady digital tone of his heart monitor and occasional dull finger tap on Tony's tablet.

The billionaire had his feet propped up on the side of the bed, his attention fully engrossed in whatever he was doing, but when the Captain moved he came to attention.

"Grace? Eve?" Steve croaked, his throat feeling like sandpaper. He was attempting to get up.

Tony pushed him back on the bed. "Easy there, big guy. They're fine. They're safe."

The Captain relaxed. He closed his eyes, his head dropping back on the pillow. He felt like he'd taken a hulk sized punch to the body, or more likely, had had a house dropped on him.

The original Avenger swallowed, "What happened?"

Tony puffed his cheeks, letting his breath out in short intermittent bursts.

"They just don't make condemned houses like they used to."

Steve leveled him with an unamused look.

Tony sat back, "Right. Look, he took the kid upstairs. I did what I had to do." 

"You dropped a house on us."

"I saved the kid."

Steve swallowed again. "Is she okay?"

Tony gave a look, the closest he had to genuine emotion, "She's fine. A little shook up, but fine. Not a scratch on her. I had Banner look her over."

It was then that Steve realized where he was - the medical wing of Stark Tower. Everything was state of the art, all shiny and new. A touch screen was imbedded in the wall by the sleek sliding glass door, giving up to the second updates on the vitals of patient, Steve Rogers. Rather than rely on local resources in the south of Texas, Tony had flown them to New York. That could either be a good or a bad thing.

"He's not a doctor," Steve deadpanned.

"He kind of is."

"And Grace?"

Stark hesitated.

"Tony, where's Grace?"

"Helen Cho is with her. There's some swelling on her brain and..."

"And what, Tony?" Steve's heart rate was rising as he sat up in the bed again. "What?"

"There's a question of... well, if she's going to wake up."

He fell back, utterly defeated. His face tight in remorse, "No."

"I'm sorry, Steve."

The Captains chin dimpled as he squeezed his eyes shut.

"It's my fault," He whispered hoarsely. "I shouldn't... it's my fault."

Tony was highly uncomfortable which for him equated to sympathy. He didn't exactly know what the captains feelings were for the nurse but he suspected they ran deeper than the implied captor/hostage relationship.

"If it helps at all, you tried. When I dug you out, you were shielding her under a mattress." He left out the part about the guy who didn't make it.

Steve took a slow breath, his breaking heart falling back in to its regular bradycardic rhythm. "Where's Eve?"

"With Natasha."

Steve nodded once, down and then up again, before throwing back the bedcovers. He tore out his IV and pulled off the monitor leads. His clothes, dusty and torn, were folded over the back of a chair. He didn't care though.

"What are you doing?"

"She's three. She's got to be scared out of her mind," Steve said, stepping in to his pants. "She's comfortable with me. If you want to stop me I welcome you to try."

Tony frowned, "Actually what I meant was, what are you doing with those clothes? I'll have something clean brought up."

*****

He found Eve in the commons with a poised Natasha Romanov and an extremely anxious Bruce Banner. He nodded to them in cool acknowledgement. Nat looked indifferent and Bruce looked ready to flee at the slightest provocation. Steve hadn't seen either of them in months, but at the moment he didn't care. 

There were cartoons playing on the obscenely large television and Eve was going to town on a strawberry pop tart and chocolate milk. Steve doubted her mother would approve and the thought of it broke his heart further.

He crouched down beside Eve.

"Hey sweetie," He greeted tenderly.

She looked at him with eyes full of wonder before clamoring to her bare feet. Her arms were around his neck in an instant and she almost managed to knock him off balance. He suspected the after effects of Tony's anti-serum were still at play.

Eve buried her face in his shoulder and he rubbed slow circles on her back.

"Mama's sleeping," She mumbled in to his shirt.

"I know baby. I know," He soothed. 

"Let's go wake her up!" The toddler suggested.

Steve swallowed the tight ball lodged in his throat. "I'm afraid we can't do that just now. Mama needs her rest."

"But... I want to."

"I know you do. I want to too," He confessed, holding her at arms length so he could look in to her bright and honest face. "But the doctors, they want Mama to rest and we should listen to the doctors, right? They know what they're doing."

"Bruce is a doctor!" Eve announced. 

"I know. Bruce is a... he's a friend of mine," Steve gave a wan smile.

No one tried to argue with him.

*****

It seemed to be accepted among the occupants of the tower that Steve was allowed to be there. Of course no one said anything to him but he was met with no resistance when he collected Eve and took her to his former living quarters. 

He found everything to be exactly as he had left it, except the cupboards - those were bare. The cleaning lady had still made her rounds though and the furniture was free of dust. A picture of the team sat on the mantel of the sleek marble fireplace.

"Good morning, Captain Rogers."

It had been long enough that when the pretty Irish lilt came out of nowhere, it actually took him a second to not look for a person.

"Good morning, Friday," He responded, setting Eve to sit on the kitchen counter.

"Mr. Stark has asked that I make sure you have all you need for Miss. Eve."

Steve looked to the girl, his brow worried. She was still in her night clothes. How long had it been since she had had a bath? Everything seemed a lifetime ago.

He placed an order with the AI; nothing extravagant, just the essentials, clothes, coloring books, bath soap, and some food that he knew Eve would eat but also held some nutritional value.

"Thank you, Friday," He said when he was done.

"Will there be anything else, sir?"

"No, thank you," He said and then quickly, "Uh Friday, what's my access status?"

"Restricted. You have limited access to the common areas and medical wing only, sir."

That's when he realized he was a prisoner with only the appearance of freedom. He didn't worry about it though. After all, he had said he'd go quietly.

*****

Grace really did appear to be sleeping. Dr. Cho was a brilliant doctor who had done everything she could for her, and now all anyone could do was wait. They had Grace tucked away towards to back of the medical ward, out of the way of the hustle and bustle. There she slept while Friday kept a close monitor on brain waves and vitals. There she slept while Steve and Eve waited.

After the initial shock of seeing her incapacitated, the cuts and bruising left by the trauma, Steve found there were the parts of her that remained the same and he focused his attention on those. Her left hand for instance, was uninjured; long tapered fingers relaxed at her side. And while she suffered injury to her face, her mouth was untroubled and her pliable lips looked ready for a kiss or an easy smile.

He talked to her. He knew from experience that she could hear him, so he talked. When he grew weary or found he no longer had words he read; story books mostly, ones that Eve also could enjoy. They would sit in the chair beside the bed, on her left because that was her good side, and read stories of dancing giraffes and trucks that went beep. When the nurses came in to check on her they made no comment about their being there and when Helen Cho came by she assured him they were doing all they could.

They just had to wait. 

On the third day, while Eve slept curled in Steve's lap, Tony arrived at the door. He gave a look of deference to the woman in the bed before turning to the man sitting vigil. Aside from when he had to tend to Eve's needs, he hadn't left the hospital floor.

"We need to talk," Tony kept his voice respectfully low. Steve appreciated it.

"I guess we should."

"They were never your hostages," Stark made the casual observation.

Steve shook his head, "No."

"You were trying to go back for them when I..."

The Captains mouth was tight, "I heard her scream."

"You still went back though. You could have just sent me, but you went back."

Steve turned the saddest of blue looks on him, "If it had been Pepper, even now, even without the suit you would have gone too."

Tony didn't shy away from the reminder of his lost love as much as he absorbed the meaning of the statement.

"What are we doing here, Tony?" Steve finally asked. "Am I under arrest?"

"Should you be?"

"I think you know I shouldn't."

"What I know..." Tony started strong before trailing off. He looked to the child sleeping peacefully in the Captain's arms and then to the woman in the bed. The latest innocent victims on a long list for the Avengers.

"What I know is that when we fight the people we care about most seem to have a way of getting hurt."

Steve looked exhausted, "I'm done fighting with you."

"Me too."

"If you want to hand me over to Ross or send me to RAFT that's fine. I just..." The Captain's brow wrinkled again as he frowned at Grace. He adjusted Eve in his arms without disturbing her. "If you could make sure Eve and Grace are taken care of. Please."

Tony sighed, "You know there's another way."

"What, sign the accords?" Steve's lip curled at the thought.

"Why not?"

"I'd rather be a man without country than a man without principles. I won't have my abilities dictated."

"Come on, Steve. There has to be -."

Steve cut him off, "I'm not going to have this argument with you again. You've made your decision, now accept mine."

Tony took a pause and then said, "But what if there was a way we could have it both ways?"

The Captain shot him a dubious look. 

"Maybe we can all get what we want out of this."

*****

At first Steve had thought to ask Natasha or even one of the nurses from the hospital to help with Eve's bath. It's not like he was related to her and he really had no business taking care of a little girl but he found that it wasn't really that hard or even unnatural once he got past all the squirming.

"Hold still, you're going to get soap in your eyes," He warned as he tipped her head back to rinse.

She was engrossed in a game with action figures that included Thor pushing The Hulk off the side of the porcelain tub. She was pretty accurate in her depiction of the two superheroes relationship with one another.

"Sorry to interrupt, Captain Rogers," Friday purred from nowhere. "But you're wanted in the medical wing. Ms. Holland is asking for you."

Steve bumped his knee on the side of the tub as he shot up. "What? She's..."

"Ms. Holland woke up five minutes ago," The AI explained. "Vitals are stable and brain function appears to be normal. She has asked after you and her daughter."

He was already gone. With Eve dripping wet and wrapped in a towel he was running to the the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.

Dr. Cho was standing beside the bed having a hushed conversation with the patient when they came skidding in to the room. Grace's face crumbled as soon as she saw Eve was unharmed. Sobbing, she reached for her daughter. 

"I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so so sorry."

If she was troubled by her mother's overwhelming emotion, Eve didn't show it. She was a good kid that way. Adaptable, Steve thought. He wondered just how much she would be willing to adapt to in her life then quickly pushed the thought from his mind.

"Where are your clothes?" Grace asked once she had finished thoroughly kissing her daughters face.

Steve cleared his throat, "She was taking a bath when Friday told us you were awake."

Grace looked at him as though for the first time noticing his presence. She gave no sign of resentment for what had happened but she also didn't welcome him with open arms the way she had her daughter. He was surprised by how much that hurt.

"Friday?" She asked, looking confused. It was understandable.

"Allow me to introduce myself," Friday's disembodied lilt greeted. "I am Friday; artificial intelligence and assistant to Mr. Stark. I oversee everything here at Stark Tower."

Grace's brows shot up. "Oh, okay..."

"Friday's been looking after you," Steve explained gently before quickly adding, "Along with Dr. Cho, of course."

"Thank you, Captain Rogers," The doctor gave a demure smile. "I'll just leave you three alone for a bit."

Steve murmured his thanks as she made her leave. Then the quiet settled over them, heavy and uncomfortable.

"So this is Stark Tower?" Grace asked after a minute, her chin rested atop Eve's head. "Impressive."

She didn't look that impressed.

"Tony wanted to see that you got the best care," Steve explained lamely.

She arched a brow, "How generous of him."

Steve didn't have a retort. This would typically be the moment Tony chose to come bursting in and when he didn't they fell back in to a silence just as awkward as if he had.

"Grace, I'm so sorry," He finally said, his voice thick.

"You left us there."

"I know."

"You handcuffed me to the bed."

"I know, I'm sor -."

"You said you..." Her eyes dropped. They both knew what he had said - what they both had said. She swallowed hard. "How do you say that to someone and then leave? How could you lie like that?"

He was standing at the foot of the bed. His face tight, he took an involuntary step nearer. He took hold of her leg through the covers. Her beautiful leg so vulnerable beneath his hand.

"I didn't lie, Grace," He told her in earnest. "I couldn't. Not about a thing like that."

She buried her nose in Eve's sweet smelling crown, her eyes glistening with tears.

"But you left."

For her it was the deepest betrayal. It hurt far more than anything else she had ever suffered, including having a house collapsed on top of her.

"I love you and I love Eve," His voice broke as he took another step. Reaching her side now, he put his hand on Eve's back. "I left because I didn't want to hurt you any more. I couldn't continue to rob you of your freedom - of your life."

"What about what we wanted?" She asked. "Did you ever think of that?"

In all honesty, he had. He just hadn't thought it possible that she could ever want him. Deep down inside, he was still that kid from Brooklyn.

"What do you want, Grace?" He asked softly.

Before she could answer Tony appeared. He had a giant bouquet of pink roses in one hand and the handle of an ominous looking navy duffle bag in the other.

"Well nurse Holland, just look at you," Tony greeted, delivering the flowers to the side table. "How do you feel?"

Grace's usually warm green eyes narrowed to icy slits. Despite her head trauma and waking up in Stark Tower, she hadn't forgotten that he was the perceived enemy. 

"Like I've been hit by a truck."

"Yeah... about that. I'm sorry? I did manage to save your kid though." He gave her that awe shucks shrug.

"We were sort of in the middle of something," Steve flashed him a look, hopeful that it conveyed that now wasn't the time. "Maybe you could come back later?"

The genius sobered. "Yeah, I can't do that."

Tony dropped the duffle at his feet. It landed with a heavy metallic thud. Steve stiffened, his body protective in front of the girls.

"It's time for you to go."

"What is this, Tony?" The Captain asked.

"The world needs heroes, right Captain?" Tony matched his stare.

"I told you I won't be dictated to."

"I know. Call this a compromise."

"Last time I checked 'compromise' wasn't in your vocabulary," Steve arched a brow at him.

"Look, maybe there's a chance that you were right. It's a big world out there and it's growing bigger every day. Maybe it's time the world had more options."

Steve chanced a look to Grace. Her eyes were wide. Eve had turned in her arms, so she too could be apart of the conversation. Her mother covered her modestly with her damp towel.

"I can't be everywhere, Steve," Tony told him. "Like North Korea where there's a weapons den using kids as human mules. There are places I can't go but that doesn't mean someone else shouldn't."

His focus was still on Grace but he turned slowly to Tony. He understood the offer being put before him. It was in fact, a compromise.

"Maybe," Steve whispered softly, returning his attention to his lady love. His expression was a weird mix of hope and trepidation. He wanted to go but would stay if only she said the word.

"What do you want, Grace?"

She took a deep breath, knowing what he wanted to hear, also knowing that he would do whatever she asked. It was a strange thing to know she held that much power over the superhero. She knew if she asked him to stay, he would, but she also knew more than anything that he needed to be a hero. Even stripped of his abilities, he was still the guy that ran headlong in to danger instead of away from it. After all, he had done it for her.

Maybe this was who he was meant to be.

"Come back to me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know Bruce Banner is not part of this canon however, I get giddy over Bruce "Not That Kind of Doctor" jokes and also love the image of his anxiety around kids. I mean, could you imagine???


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The acronym CSH reads as "cash" and stands for Combat Support Hospital. If you're familiar with the show M*A*S*H* (my second favorite Hawkeye) it's the modern day equivalent.

If I had to pick one thing about the desert that I hated most it would be the sand. Sure, the heat is ungodly , but you can drink water and hope for some shade. There's no hope for sand. It gets everywhere, sneaking its way in to equipment, sticking to any exposed skin, hiding in the cracks. Even now, I've yet to use the latrine but I can feel it in my...

Never mind the sand.

I adjust the scarf over my mouth and nose and keep my head down.

If you had asked me when I came home from my last sanctioned tour of duty, I would have said there was no chance of me ever returning to the desert. I loved what I did, but I loved my family more. I wasn't going back. Now I've been here four times in the last six months. I still love my family, perhaps more so now than ever. That's why I'm here.

A voice chirps up in my ear. It doesn't startle me, not like it used to. Now she's more like my own personal Gimini Cricket. She tells me everything I need to know to do my job well.

"Bravo team is two minutes out."

"Thank you, Friday. How's our cargo holding?"

"As expected."

I take a deep breath, looking first to my right, then my left. Everyone is standing at least two steps behind me. They always hesitate this way. It's part of the reason I'm here. The other part is still two minutes out.

"They don't bite," I call back to them, urging the medical team to join me. 

Only one takes a hesitant step forward. Brave soul.

This is my job now; it's what I do. I get dropped in the middle of war zones to prepare and encourage apprehensive CSH units to deal with the incoming injuries brought in by the Bravo team. This is only one of the things I do as chief medical liaison (a title made up by my new employer). I'm also the personal medic for the Bravo team and sometimes (most times) the middleman between the team and the guy who foots the bill for all our tech. The hours are wonky, and I spend most days waiting for a phone call, but the pay is great and I like the people I work with even if my boss can be an aggravating man child. It's fine though, if he steps out of line I can always remind him about the time he dropped a house on me.

In the distance I can see the shimmer in the sky that lets me know the quinjet is approaching. It's preceded by a hot rod red blur that slows for a brief moment, hovering over the medical camp before shooting off again. Oh, it must have been take your Iron Man to work day. Fun.

"Good morning, Nurse Holland. Beautiful day out. Can I just say that that is a lovely shade of khaki you're wearing?" I hear all of this in my ear, and ignore most of it.

"Good morning, Tony."

"You've got incoming. Three minutes."

"Copy."

I adjust my weight, preparing to move. It's hot underneath the cumbersome weight of my flack vest but as long as my feet are on the ground I'm forced to wear it. That's a direct order not from Tony but from my other boss.

The quinjet comes in to full view. It hovers for a second above our heads before turning a half circle in the sky and coming down in a beautiful, sleek landing. It touches down with nothing more than the gentle whir of its engines and an soft cloud of dust.

Three minutes means I'll have ninety seconds. I start running before the carrier door even drops.

"Okay, lets get the walkers offloaded first," I'm shouting orders to be heard over the bustle of medical personnel. "We've got five non-ambulatory, four stretchers. This one needs to go straight to the O.R."

A weak hand stops me by the wrist as I move between the stretchers. He's alive. Barely. Another few days in that POW camp that doesn't officially exist and he wouldn't be so lucky.

"Are... we... home?" He gasps, his face yellow with jaundice beneath all the grime.

I pull the scarf from my face, a shower of sand falling at my feet. "Not yet, soldier. Just a quick stop to get you gussied up first."

He blinks at me, the cords in his neck bulging as he strains to hold his head up. I pat his hand before nodding to a private waiting to take him off the carrier. 

In no time we've got them all unloaded; sixteen prisoners of war in less than a minute and a half. With Friday's help, I've managed to triage most of them and the CSH unit will take care of the rest. There is blood on the carrier floor as the quinjet takes off again and I drop to a bench. Barring any injury to the team, my job here is done.

I close my eyes and let my head fall back. I can feel the grit of sand on my neck. It's in my hair.

Stupid sand.

"Let me help you there," I hear. His voice as soft as velvet in my ear as he sits down beside me and I open my eyes. I even smile when he starts to unclasp my Kevlar vest. His eyes meet mine, the sincerest of blue with just few flecks of green beneath the cover of his hood.

"How did it go?" I ask.

Steve smiles. It's not his happy smile; his eyes don't crinkle with it, but it let's me know that he's satisfied with the way things went.

"What about you?" He asks when my vest springs open, finally granting me the freedom to take a full breath.

"Oh, you know," I manage with a smile.

I don't protest when he starts digging through my pockets. As long as he isn't Lang shrunk down to Ant Man size on the hunt for candy (you would be surprised by how often that has happened to me) he's welcome to search my person. Finding what he wants, he slips it on my finger. The metal is warm and his fingers callused as he closes my hand beneath his.

His breath is warm and intimate on my neck. 

"Did you take it easy?" He asks. "You should be taking it easy."

"Tell that to my boss," I quip then look at him with a half smile. "We don't even know if it's a sure thing yet."

Not entirely true. Wanda confirmed it for me this morning, but she's sworn to secrecy.

When he frowns at me I'm tempted to poke him in the cheeks. 

"Friday?"

"It's a sure thing," The AI answers smoothly.

Stupid AI. I should have remembered to enable the privacy protocol, also known as girl code.

Steve looks a me wide eyed. The smile spreads slowly, this time his eyes crinkling. I can't help but giggle at his silly boyish grin. He has that effect on me.

"What's a sure thing?" Sam asks from the cockpit of the jet where he sits copilot to Hawkeye. He's turned in his seat to join the conversation and I can see Barton at the controls also listening in.

"Grace is pregnant," Steve beams proudly.

"What?" Sam cries. "When did that happen?"

"My guess is the honeymoon," Scott Lang quips from his station across from us. I can feel myself actually start to blush. He isn't that far off.

I roll my eyes while Wanda gives me a knowing look. 

We accept congratulations from all around before I snuggle beneath Steve's arm. I feel safe here. There's comfort in knowing that no matter what happens I will always have his arms to come back to. He's not going anywhere.

"Uh, we've got company," Barton announces. "Someone want to take care of that?"

Yeah, when I say he's not going anywhere, I mean that figuratively. 

"I'm on it."

Steve gets up from his seat beside me. If I was the kind of girl I might pout, but there's no place for pouting here.

I watch as he adjusts the navy hood over his head. The uniform is different now, navy with gold trim and there's no longer a star of freedom on his shield, but the man behind it is still very much the same. As long as there is breath left in him, he will fight.

"I love you," He tells me.

"I know."

He makes his way to the back of the carrier where the door starts to open. There's a vacuum effect in the holding area and I cringe against the noise.

"Nomad!" I shout, knowing he can hear me.

He turns.

"Come back to me."

He gives me that smirk. "Yes ma'am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Now to write some fluffy fluffy fluff.
> 
> Let me know what y'all think!

**Author's Note:**

> I write at 5am, usually before the coffee has time to kick in, so sometimes I ramble. If you hate it I'd love to know why.


End file.
